Just TH4T
by Milkbonez
Summary: Pokemon Champion Cynthia awakens one day to find herself a cookie. She, her twin Shirona, and her beloved Gastrodon embark on a quest to figure out the mystery behind the past eight years, and why the world took a downward spiral ever since her disappearance. Rated for strong language, moderate violent scenes, and non-explicit adult themes.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: This is a story born from randomness, but it gains a little bit more sense and plenty more plot as it moves along. I'll give credit where it's due at the beginning of chapters where it is necessary. To be clear, I do not own Pokemon, NiGHTS, or any respective characters. They belong to their original owners and creators.**

**Cynthia is the Pokemon Champion of Sinnoh who researches myths on the side.**

**Shirona is Cynthia's doppelganger, who has the mysterious power to create and close the normally-random plotholes. Nobody knows where she comes from. Her bangs cover her right eye, the reverse of Cynthia's.**

**Cynthia's Gastrodon is one of her main Pokemon.**

* * *

Hot.

Hottie hotstuff.

She was overheating. Cynthia was so drop-dead gorgeous, she must've had a fever of over a hundred. This heat was making her skin dry; she groaned in discomfort. She could hardly move around. Where was her bed? She lay atop something hard, uneven, brown. The air around her was sweet, spicy, mouth-watering.

Fingers lightly grasped her sides, and looking up she saw a pair of teeth coming at her. "EEEK OMG STAHP."

She was turned in the hand to face Shirona, whose eyes went first to her face, then to the plate of cookies before her, then around the kitchen. She narrowed her eyes. "I knew last night's fried sushi was suspicious. It's making me hear things."

"Shirona!"

She blinked again before dropping Cynthia onto the counter with surprise. "…Cynthia? That you?"

"Yeah. Where am I? What happened to me?"

The woman leaned on the counter, gazing down at Cynthia curiously. "You're a cookie."

"Wha, why am I a cookie? What have you done to me?! I always knew you liked me as more than a friend, but this much?"

"What are you talking about? You've been missing for years."

Cynthia blinked her little white-chocolate chip eyes. "I have?"

"Yeah. Ever since you disappeared, everything sorta... changed."

"Where did I go? What happened?"

"I have no idea. Gastrodon knows, but she hasn't spoken to me since you went missing. She thinks I had something to do with it and wouldn't believe me when I said I didn't. Apparently Garchomp disappeared, too."

"But, she's not here…" Cynthia fell silent for just a moment. "What do you mean when you say everything 'changed'?"

"Oh, jeez. It makes the Distortion World look normal. For starters, my apartment is now located in the trunk of a giant tree."

"o.O;"

"That's what I said."

"But, why did everything go to shit? Who knows what happened when I disappeared, and where I went?"

Shirona shrugged, suggesting, "I think we should start by talking to Gastrodon. She might know something and will actually talk to me now that you're back." She hopped out the window and plotholed to Cynthia's house, which looked much the same as it always had aside from the giant moat surrounding it. Now, Shirona could have been a polite human-thing and knocked before entering. But she's not polite. She's a bitch. She brought up her boot of awesome and kicked down the front door.

Dust everywhere. In fact, dust bunnies fled underneath the couch and behind the entertainment set when they went into the house. It looked much the same, aside from all the furniture looking as though it had been chewed on. Furthermore, the windows had been boarded up and cans of Maren Repellent lay scattered. "Call for her," Shirona said.

"Gaaaastrodon~! It's me, Cynthia! I'm back!" There was no response. "Maybe she's upstairs?"  
Shirona slowly climbed the steps into the blackened higher areas of the house. It smelled old and stuffy in there; they both sneezed from all the dust and the smell of dust-bunny poo that lay around. "Gastrodon, you've done an awful job at keeping this house tidy."

"QWERTY!" screamed a rough voice, and they were tackled by sixty pounds of leather and slime and pink. Gastrodon spewed a powerful force of water at Shirona's face, but the plotspace queen had little trouble in a reversal and was standing on top of her back. "GET OUT OF HERE, YOU EEEEEBIL WOMAN 8C"

"Gastrodon, someone wants to talk to you."

Shirona held out the cookie toward the slug, and Cynthia said, "Long time no see, Gastrodon."

The pink creature blinked. "Ss... Cynthia? CYNTHIA?" She struggled under the steel-toed boot. "It's been so long! Where have you been? I knew Shirona was holding you hostage, and look! She turned you into—"

"It wasn't her fault. She doesn't know anything, and neither do I."

"Wha?"

Shirona rolled her eyes. "Like I've been trying to tell you all along."

Gastrodon began to weep like an elated li'l bebeh. "Oh, Cynthia. It's been so lonely without you or anyone. You left, Garchomp left, the marens came—"

"Wait, nightmarens have been here? Is that why there's so much Maren Repellent lying around?"

"Yes. They swarmed the house, looking for something to eat. I hid in the safety room I built under the house, but they kidnapped the others. Togekiss, Glaceon, Roserade and all them. This was two years ago. They fetched food and helped keep the house clean while we tried to figure out what happened to you."

Cynthia gasped as Shirona took her feet off the slug and crouched down to her level. "That's horrible. Wait, where did I go? Did I say?"

Gastrodon shrugged. "You went out to get… something. I forget what it was now. But you went to the store and never came back. Garchomp went out to look for you a few hours later, and she's been missing ever since, too. Then, everything sorta went downhill from there. Marens started appearing here for some reason and attacked people. The dragon trio was visibly uneasy for awhile and fought briefly but then stopped. Then... things stopped making sense in the world, so badly that plotholes kept appearing everywhere."

"Then they stopped," Shirona added, "because all this nonsense started becoming the norm."

"All because I left?" Cynthia asked.

"Oh, please, you're not that special, babe. But it sure is a strange coincidence."


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Touch and Bluey are also Gastrodons, and were her best friends in the past. Touch is a shiny Western; Bluey is a normal Eastern.**

**Hallucinatouch is a nightmaren shaped like a humanoid, shiny Western Gastrodon, with four arms and a shimmering aura about her. She has the power to create tangible illusions.  
**

* * *

"Before we start trying to answer any questions," Cynthia injected, "I would like to have my body back. It's not fun being a baked good."

Gastrodon nodded. "Good idea, but how do we do that?"

"Well, the world doesn't make any sense anymore. Surely, it can't be that hard for me to get my old body back."

"Yeah. But the big question is still _how_?"

Shirona straightened up from her crouch. "Gastrodon probably hasn't left the property in ages, but I have an idea. The Trippy Library is full of books on this sort of weird crap. It might be a bit of a challenge to get there, but if we make it, we might find our answer."

Cynthia cocked her crumbly head. "The Trippy Library? Wh-What do you mean _if_ we make it?"

"I'll show you guys when we get there." The plotspace queen led the way out the door and offered a quick ride to the entrance of the building. It seemed grand from afar, with three wide windows at the front face of the building and pillars in front of the door. However, a sprawling courtyard full of colorful flowers in bloom girded by wrought-iron fence separated them from the library.

Gastrodon remarked, "This is the most normal-looking thing I've seen in years." She threw an emphasizing glance at everything around her, including a river of socks that cut through the main city and buildings created from every material from bar soap to cheese wedges to glass windchimes suspended from nothing.

The former Champion took a good, long look at the library, trying to determine its vaguely familiar shape. She shook her head and only remarked, "Pretty fancy-looking, and not too hard to get to. I'm still not sure what you were talking about earlier, Shirona."

"Stay close, Gastrodon," was all the latter advised as she slipped Cynthia into a coat pocket, her head sticking out, and pulled open the front gate to the courtyard. As soon as she and the slug Pokemon stepped beyond the black iron, they were surrounded by a shimmering haze as if everything around them was directly above a flame, and the flowers and full spring trees around them faded away. Off to the side were Gastrodon's old friends Touch and Bluey, appearing to share a book.

A grin immediately appeared on Gastrodon's face upon spotting her good friends, and she began to bound over to them, awkward little running jumps with a lack of grace that only a Gastrodon could perform. It had been far too long since she had seen anyone, and how she was glad to see they had remained unmolested by the nightmarens or any other creature. Shirona, however, stepped in front of her and began shoving her back with a knee. "Stop right there and follow where I'm going," she ordered. "If you get sidetracked we'll never make it to the library."

"B-But my friends…"

"Cynthia's your friend, too, and right now she needs a real body."

Gastrodon gave a little nod and somewhat grudgingly followed Shirona's lead. They drew slowly nearer to the library with each step made, and the scenery began to change around them as well. When Touch and Bluey disappeared, walls suddenly rose up to block their path and create a new one. Shirona pressed against the wall, tried to kick through it, to no avail; they had no choice but to navigate the maze. Around each corner was a friendly sign asking visitors to pick up stray books and place them in the library drop-off box.

Escaping the maze was not very difficult at all. The problems began again when they realized they were surrounded by a thick, white fog, accompanied by a chilly dampness that hung in the air. Shirona muttered, "Crap. How in the hell do we know which direction the library is in now?"

Cynthia scanned their vicinity and pointed straight from her pocket, saying, "I see some books over there. Maybe they could contain some useful info, or else we oughta drop them off in a drop-box."

But her doppelganger shook her head. "I'd rather wait until we got to the library first. This place is called Trippy Library for a reason." She folded her arms and paused, her face conveying a quiet thoughtfulness. "How could we find out where the library is right now…?"

"I could go on ahead to see if I could find it," offered Gastrodon, and before Shirona could say yea or nay, she was off. The latter only wished her luck. Hopefully she would be safe. Meanwhile she and Cynthia pressed onward at a slow, careful pace, ignoring anything that seemed out-of-place—rather, too normal.

At last, three dark figures appeared in the fog. Library silhouettes. She approached one first but paused before climbing the steps to the pillars and the door beyond. Cynthia watched her turn her head slightly, and she asked, "What are you doing?"

"This is just an illusion. The real one would have be emitting a soft noise." Shirona moved on to one of the other two figures on her right as Gastrodon came wandering up.

"I think this is the real library. The steps of the other one keep crumbling under my feet."

The woman climbed the steps and stopped at the top. The slug and the cookie looked back; the courtyard now appeared as it had before they entered the gates. A large, thick red carpet rolled out of the double doors of the building, stopping just before Shirona's feet, and she trotted inside. Cynthia could hear the soft noise she had mentioned earlier—it was like the gentle sound of breathing. The main room of the library held the entrances of many grand corridors, all leading to different genres. There was even a staircase to a second floor, to fit genres that could not fit on the bottom. "Which one do you think would have a book on my sort of problem?"

An inaudible voice came to her mind: _What is your sort of problem?_

She was unsure of whether the voice could read minds, so she said awkwardly, "Er… I'm a cookie. I'd like my old body back."

_You want a body to move around in?_

"That's right?"

Gastrodon cocked her head and raised an eyebrow. "Who are you talking to?"

"You… can't hear that voice?"

_Granted~!_

The rolling of thunder echoed through the halls, and fissures and cracks appeared in the ceiling as it began to collapse. Shirona turned to escape, narrowly avoiding being crushed by chunks of the second story floor. The entire building was surrounded by a bright white light, and as fell, it was absorbed into the pocket of the plotspace queen. A booming shockwave sent her and Gastrodon sprawling. Where the library once stood, at the back of the wrought iron fence and blooming flowers, lay the humanoid body of Hallucinatouch.


	3. Chapter 3

"Who is that?" asked Gastrodon to Shirona, gazing uncertainly at the odd, humanoid creature before them.

The woman's face twisted into a scowl, and she answered, "Some annoying nightmaren. I should have known she had something to do with this library."

Hallucinatouch's eyes popped open and, pushing herself up into a sitting position, she looked around her surroundings, noticing the threatening look Shirona and the Pokemon gave her.

"Oh, she's awake. I say we kill her."

"Kill me?" The pair shat bricks when they heard Cynthia's voice come out of the gastromaren. "What're you talking about?" She looked down at her four arms and shrieked loudly, hyperventilating. "Wh-What happened?!"

Gastrodon tilted her head so far that she almost twisted it upside down. "Cynthia? Is that you?"

"Yes, but what happened to my body?!"

"Does it have anything to do with that voice you were talking to right before the library collapsed?"

Illusions of cartoony question marks appeared above H-Touch!Cynthia's head and floated around freely as she responded with a shrug. "But if I'm in _this _body, then is this person in—"

"The name is Hallucinatouch, and yes, I am," said the voice in the cookie. Shirona immediately took a nibble, and the cookie shrieked in terrible, terrible agony. "STOP, PLEASE! DON'T YOU GET IT! I _WAS_ THE LIBRARY!"

Cynthia stretched her second pair of arms while she rubbed her slimy skin all over with her first pair. "But... how could you be a library?" She could barely hear herself over the sound of H-Touch's bloody-murder screaming. She grabbed Shirona's wrist when the latter moved to take another bite. "Wait. If she _was_ the library, maybe she has something important to tell us."

"AND IF YOU KILL ME..." H-Touch paused to sob. "If-If you kill me, my important somethings to tell you die with me!"

Shirona raised an eyebrow. "Fine, then. Let's go back to my place to chat. We'll try to help you feel better."

"Yeah, and it would be nice to figure out how to manage these hallucinations!" Cynthia waved away the illusions up above with her hands as through flies were buzzing overhead.

They decided to head back to Cynthia's house to listen to whatever Hallucinabitch had to say. Yeah, Hallucinabitch. See, what happened was, since they basically needed her to tell them the significance of her being the library, they had to not eat her. They waited until she finally calmed down from the pain enough to speak, but she only huffed, "Why should I tell you guys anything? When I do, you'll just kill me."

Cynthia offered, "What if we—meaning all three of us, Shirona included—promised not to?"

"I don't trust you. So you won't be getting anything out of me."

Shirona slammed her fist down on the counter next to Cookie!H-Touch, making her jump a little. She grumbled, "You listen here. We'll promise not to kill you IF you tell us things we want to know. If you choose instead to screw around with us, then don't think I won't take another nibble out of you, slowly."

The cookie squeaked. "Okay, okay! I was kicked out of nightmare and made into a building so I couldn't move around and return. My books all represented my knowledge and imagination, although the rest of my imagination stayed out here in the courtyard. I made it harder for people to visit with my illusions, as you have experienced, because I was just so sick and bitter at everyone for hating me so hard. But you guys had the smarts to get through to the front door."

"But why did you give me your body? Wouldn't you rather have it back and not be a cookie?" Cynthia inquired.

"Yes, I would. But I couldn't move at the time, a curse from the evil Nightmaren dictator who ordered I be exiled. Thankfully, you showed up to break it."

"But... I didn't do anything. How did I break it?"


	4. Chapter 4

Hallucinatouch smiled in spite of her pain as she answered Cynthia's question. "You broke the curse by entering and wishing for a body. That was the conditions of the curse: I was to remain a building until someone entered and wished to change themselves, their features, become someone they're not, basically say anything that I could use to grant their wish by giving them my body and swapping with theirs. Unfortunately for me, you're a cookie."

Gastrodon piped up, "What about this nightmaren dictator you mentioned?"

"Awful is an understatement! After he overthrew Wizeman, he crowned himself ruler and made Nightmare his own. Several first-levels were executed, including my dear Reala; he uses second-levels as his castle guards; and he's employed an organization of third-levels to report anyone who talks of rebellion. Bomamba captured me and let me know how lucky I was to escape with exile."

"Was he the one that made all the nightmarens suddenly attack the human world?"

"Oh, yes. When the denizens of the Night Dimension would not submit, he cut off their food source, Nightopia, causing a massive famine. They were forced to search elsewhere, like this world. Third-levels had to stay and pledge their obedience in order to be allowed to eat."

Shirona wanted to know, "Are the nightmarens the cause of all this nonsense happening in the world? You know, the crap that made all the plotholes before it became the new 'norm'?"

Hallucinatouch frowned. "No, they are not. That's something else entirely, but what, I don't know."

Cynthia mused quietly. How long had H-Touch been the library? She asked, "When you were exiled, was everything all weird and nonsensical, or did it look sort of normal?"

"Weird and nonsensical, just slightly less so than it is today."

"So you wouldn't happen to know where I went."

"Darlin, I don't know a thing about you at all."

Cynthia gave a small groan. "So here's what I've collected so far. I disappeared, then so did Garchomp; everything went to shit; Nightmare got a new dictator who caused a famine, which led marens to attack this area. At some point, the dragon trio started getting uncomfortable, too." Above her head, simplified pictures of events appeared. "First question is, where did I go, and why was I gone for so long?"

"I'll try to remember," offered Gastrodon, and she began to pace around the room. "It was so long ago, but I'll try!"

Shirona presented another inquiry: "Is the new Nightmare dictatorship correlated to this whole mess?"

"GUYS I JUST GOT AN IDEAR" yelled Gastrodon. "Emilio used to get around a lot. If he's still around, maybe he saw you the day you went missing. He might know why you were going out."

Cynthia nodded. "It's not a very good idea, because he might not be alive or sane anymore; but it's the only thing we have right now. Lead the way, Gastrodon. You know where he used to live."

The quartet hopped the moat and followed the floating asphalt road into a forest of office supplies. The trees were heat lamps with paper clip branches, and paper bats swarmed out of caves shaped like printers. The further they went in, the more uncomfortable Gastrodon began to feel, and she made them wander for a half-hour before finding the way out. They came upon a big blue pipe that rose out of the ground.

Shirona nudged H-Touch!Cynthia forward. "Go on. You've got fancy new powers. Check it out."

Cynthia looked down at the cookie in the other's coat pocket. "How do I manage these powers?"

"Simple. If you want to use an object—let's say, a flashlight, since the pipe might be dark—think about it and concentrate. Then, grab it and use."

The former Champion did so, causing a very powerful, bright flashlight to appear in one of her four arms. She gingerly crept toward the blue pipe and took a peek inside, and her curiosity was rewarded with the vicious, snapping jaws of a Piranha Plant. The red-and-white flower snapped its sharp pearly-whites at the air before withdrawing back into the pipe. Cynthia, deciding to trim this evil flower, turned her flashlight into a totally badass muhfuggin' lightsaber and slashed that sunnabitch into eight pieces the next time it reared its ugly-ass head. She hopped in, landing in a river of pungent-smelling, murky water. "YUCK!"

"You okay, Cynthia?" Gastrodon asked worriedly, climbing into the pipe after her.

"Yeah. Just stinks like the pits down here. It's just a sewer. Come on down; we might find something."

Shirona hopped down but immediately covered her face with her arm. "Gah, horrible! We have to wade in this crap?!"

Cynthia immediately conjured up a raft, although the brightness of her lightsaber got weaker, they did not have to walk as long as Gastrodon pushed the inflatable boat from the rear. They traveled along the smelly sewer for quite a ways, following the sounds of humming and a cheery voice. In these days? Weird. Eventually they heard the cheery voice speak words in a worried tone, and they caught the phrase "who it is." The Champion-turned gastromaren gripped her lightsaber tightly and prepared for anything, and H-Touch buried herself further into Shirona's pocket.

On the walls of the massive pipe came an abominable creature from the bowels of... look, it's a sewer, it could have been from everyone's bowels. It had the body of a Drapion, the tail of a Bibarel, the wings of a Staraptor attached to its back, the arm-cannons of a Magmortar, and the head of an oversized oriental Gastrodon. It gave a wicked hiss and launched a Flamethrower at the group. Cynthia hesitated, and Shirona absorbed the flames into a plothole. Then the beast cocked its gastrohead and growled in a deep, beastly voice, "Plotholes? It's been awhile since we've seen those. That you, Shirona?"

"What if it is?" she asked.

"You probably don't recognize me, but I'm Shinji's Toritodon, better known by my close 'friends' as Bluey."

Shirona's head went aaaaaalll the way back here, and Cynthia was so puzzled that her illusory lightsaber and inflatable raft disappeared, and they were all left standing in the water. "Whoa, you're Dorito?"

Bluey nodded. "We had mustache adventures together at one point. Who is your companion?"

Gastrodon leapt out of the stinky sewage, slithered her way along the wall, and glomped his Drapion body. "Bluey! I haven't seen you in years! It's me, the one and only Champion Gastrodon! And Four-Arms over there is Cynthia in a new body. We have quite a lot of explaining to do."

"Gastrodon, Cynthia, Shirona!" The abomination was so overcome with emotion that he looked ready to bawl like an elated li'l bebeh. "Save your breath; we can go back and meet Reiji-san, and you can tell us your story."


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N: Reiji is a Pokemon breeder from Veilstone/Failstone City. He was good friends with Cynthia.**

**Emilio is a Rhydon who held almost every job in the world except for doctor. He made a lot of strange products under the name Emiliobrand, and he was once a nightmaren hunter.  
**

* * *

Good thing the ladies had Bluey to guide them up the sewer pipes—with all its turns and contortions, they never would have found their way on their own. It was also quite kind of him to let them ride on his back so that they could avoid getting dirty in the explosions of liquid waste that cascaded from the pipes. "Reiji-san! I found some old friends of ours from the surface."

Reiji's tired eyes lit up when he saw Shirona, and he immediately hugged and kissed her. "Oh, Cynthia~"

"_I'm_ Cynthia," grumbled H-touch!Cynthia. "It's a long story, if you'll sit down and let us explain.

Reiji blushed a bit, chuckled, and beckoned them over. "Here, have a bite to eat. It isn't much, but I think I've been making great progress with my cardboard farming."

Gastrodon cocked her head as he handed them each a baked potato. "Cardboard farming?"

"That's right! I plant seeds into bits of cardboard and use boiled sewage and Bluey's Flash move to cultivate my own plants down here. We usually eat potatoes and butter. Occasionally, we might hook a live one, though!"

"A live, what?"

"Oh, you know. Cheep-cheep or Gnawty or something. Good source of protein."

The three glanced at their appetizing-smelling potatoes and then at Bluey before exchanging an uncertain glance. Cynthia smiled and said,

"We kinda had a big meal before we got here, thanks. But about our story..." They told him everything that has happened thus far in this story.

Reiji listened silently and intently, jumping back at the maren bits and nodding at the parts regarding hypotheses and the world going to shit.

"Wow, sounds like you guys had quite the adventure. Actually, I have a tiny bit of information that you might find useful."

All three of the girls nearly pinned him down as they waited excitedly to hear what he had to say. "Cynthia, you stopped by my house that day. We chatted about your books and Pokemon battling and how was Togekiss doing, the usual stuff. But you had to leave pretty soon afterwards and mentioned making a quick trip to the store on your way home."

"I know that much. Do you know what store?"

"No, you didn't say. The closest store to my house was the Failstone Department Store, but I'm not sure if you would go there on your way home..."

A moment of quiet invaded their conversation before Shirona asked, "Say, do you know where it is now? We could check it out—if Cynthia did go there after all, maybe she'll have a jolt of memory or something."

"It's in the lip of a nearby volcano."

After hastily thanking Reiji for his kindness and a tearful goodbye, Shirona plotholed herself and her companions to the surface, where they spotted the great smoky mount. They battled their way to the top solely because H-Touch recommended Cynthia sharpen her hallucination skills, and she sliced open Torkoals and mini fire-breathing dragons with insect wings. When they finally got the the top, they had all lost THIS MANY POUNDS, not on the Subway Diet, but from all that sweat they lost on the journey up. They briefly stopped to rest, and Shirona easily lowered them down to the doors of the great mall.

"What a lame store," Cynthia grumbled. All they sold here were Lava Cookies. Shirona got one and jokingly shoved it into her pocket so that

Hallucinatouch could "have a buddy." Since it is well-known that Emilio holds all the jobs, a comb-through of the mall demonstrated that he wasn't working today. Maybe he predicted that massive volcanic eruption that occurred just as they were getting ready to leave. I would have ended TH T right now had it not been for Shirona's lighting-fast reactions to plothole them away back to Reiji's home underground.

Unfortunately for them, everyone on the surface shat themselves and flushed it in reaction to the eruption, and they were all caught in a wave of shit and toilet water! Bluey moved along the tsunami of filth, using his explodey arms as jet engines and using his tail and blowing raspberries to propel himself foward. Their vomit was a more effective engine, and they sped through the sewage pipes to where all drains lead: the ocean.

"Ew ew ew ew ew ew that was the grossest thing that's ever happened to me! ;A;" exclaimed Cynthia, shuddering hard.

"I'll say!" Gastrodon concurred.

Shirona was surprisingly nonchalant. "I think H-Touch might have gotten lost in there."

"What! That's terrible! What if she had something important to tell us?"

"Well, she hasn't said anything useful since the episode started. Besides, look. There's a ship over there."

Lo and behold, there was indeed a great big pirate ship over there. Cynthia created a motorboat to quicken the pace there, and Shirona helped them aboard. One thing that was immediately obvious was that the giant pirate sail was completely in tatters; nobody could tell what image it was supposed to have depicted. Scratchmarks in the middle of the deck led them to the captain's quarters, which had its door kicked in. Gastrodon entered first—she insisted in case any danger lurk beyond the doorway, though the scariest life forms were a few large spiders.

Claw marks littered the walls; a coffee table was overturned, spilling a beer mug onto the floor; a window was smashed through; a tiny television set was yanked from the wall; furniture was either untouched or thrown across the fancy-looking bedroom. In one wall was a hole in the shape of a large, perfect circle, its edges singed black.

Cynthia reached for a picture frame. A grinning Emilio, donning a stained apron, stood with his arm around an awkward-looking young brunette. "Was this Emilio's home?"

Shirona opened the door to the closet, finding any and every uniform imaginable, from construction worker and lawyer to nursery aide and hairdresser. "Looks like it. From the evidence, someone must've come in here and kidnapped him. But who could have kidnapped a hulking Rhydon?"

"Guys, I found treasure!"

The two bipeds hurried over to an open iron door at one side of the room. Piles and piles of gold coins surrounded five great treasure chests that overflowed with diamonds and gems. Gastrodon sniggered, "I wonder how many homes Captain Emiliobeard the pirate had pillaged."

They all fell over when the great wooden ship lurched, and they ran on deck to see what was happening. Turns out they hit an island. They shuffled onto the sand to explore, hoping they might find some indigenous peoples that might be able to tell them where they were. The bushes were streaked with ruby sparkles, and the coconut that nearly fell on their heads was made of bronze on the outside. Cynthia raised an eyebrow at it before moving on. "Pretty neat for a nonsense world, but still not appetizing."

"You don't like coconuts~?" Shirona inquired.

"No way. They wreak havoc on my bowels."

Gastrodon nearly crapped her pants. "OH OH OH CYNTHIA I REMEMBERED SOMETHING!"

Cynthia jumped on her Pokemon and shook her vigorously. "TALK."

"The-the day you went missing! You had eaten a fancy cake you got from the store, and you realized that some of the candies on top were Almond Joys after you ate them. That's all I remember… but it's still something, right?"


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N: Nitrine is a nightmaren, Reala's son, who rebelled against Wizeman during his late teen years. He used to play with Visitors and does not have a low opinion of humans; Shirona is one of his best friends. Lucent is his brother and beloved mate with whom he had a son, Wrenn.  
**

**Ceruno is an original character of mine. The Italian twin siblings are original characters that belong to a friend of mine named Heather. They may or may not make a cameo appearance later.  
**

**Negatrine is Nitrine's evil clone with swap-colored blue eyes and dark brown-dyed hair. His entire backstory can be found in the fanfic called NegaNitrine.  
**

* * *

The trio wandered through the island, examining the trees bejeweled with edible diamonds and streaked with golden glitter. Gastrodon tried to smack the bronze coconut against every tree trunk they passed, but no matter how hard she tried, the stubborn fruit would not open. Shirona and Cynthia, meanwhile, summarized their findings like they do at the beginning of just about every episode. "According to everything we have found thus far, you had an Almond Joy cake, visited Reiji, and went to some store."

"That seems to be the case," shrugged the gastromaren-Champion. The fact still remained: she remembered none of these events.

"But, why would you eat Almond Joy?" questioned Shirona. "You just told me that you don't like coconuts—or, at least, you can't eat them."

"Guilty pleasure. I used to love those things, but then they just stopped agreeing with my body. They stop me up, for some reason. Maybe it just something that comes with age…" Cynthia's ear wiggled, and she curtly stopped in the midst of the tropical bushes. Her voice dropped to a whisper: "Did you hear that?"

"Har-wha?" Gastrodon attempted, but failed, to speak around the whole coconut in her mouth. A small jet of Muddy Water helped her expel it, and she stood back-to-back-to-back with her two friends. Under Shirona beginning to suggest that she plothole them back to the ship or Reiji's sewer home, the Pokémon heard a shifting in the plants around them. She launched a Stone Edge attack in the direction of the noise just as the area filled with a thick black smoke.

"Aah!"

"Cynthia!" Gastrodon choked out. She felt a pair of arms around her neck, and Shirona plotholed her into a coconut tree above the cloud of smoke. They took a breather as they waited for the haze to clear, but by that time, both their attacker and Cynthia had vanished from view…

But not from earshot. "Let me go! Where are you taking me!?" grunted their Champion.

Gastrodon leapt from the tree and gave chase. "Let go of my Cynthia!"

Ah-ha! Leave it to that troublesome maren of Shirona's to kidnap his old chew-toy! The sack over Nitrine's shoulder squirmed vigorously. The predatory glare from his face rested on the enraged sea slug that leapt at him from the ground below. He caught her easily in his hands and tore off one of her front legs with his razor-sharp fangs. She squealed, shooting muddy water into his face, bloodied and cut from the earlier Stone Edge, as he spat and tossed her aside. "Yuck! Mouthful of boogers!"

"Let my Cynthia go!" Gastrodon hissed in spite of her missing leg, launching another Stone Edge at his bleeding face. With a surprising reaction speed, he used his whip to skillfully knock a few of those rocky daggers back at her, the remainder further ripping through his ragged hoodie.

He turned about sharply to find Shirona making off with his sack, and his face split into a slasher grin. "Hi, Shirooona~!"

"Nitrine, what's going on here?" the plotspace queen demanded, narrowly plotholing away from his grabby hands when he reached for her neck. She appeared five yards away from him and yanked the sack off of Cynthia's head. "What's happened to you?"

His smile was just as broad and threatening even if he covered his teeth. "Y'see, in spite of all my belly-fat"—he squeezed some of it to emphasize—"I haven't been eating very well lately. It's been awhile since I've had a nice, big, juicy hunk of _meat_."

Cynthia conjured her old lightsaber from two episodes ago and gripped it tightly, ready for any sudden, aggressive moves on his part. "We've heard about the Nightmaren dictator and the famine he caused."

"Fucking _Nega_!" Nitrine felled a tree with a swift kick. "He's the one who turned Nightmare into a wasteland."

Gastrodon limped to be beside her bipedal friends. "Nega? You mean, that evil you?"

"_Yes_. A bunch of us came here looking for food when he blocked our access to the Dream Gate. I didn't want to eat humans, so I found Nutellaland and feasted upon the graham-cracker buildings and flowing chocolate-hazelnut rivers, gaining a belly as a result. But I am so. Sick. Of sweets. I want a _REAL_ _MEAL_. I came to this island off the Nutellaland coast to look for something meaty, and I found you~" He licked his chops madly, and Cynthia tensed.

"Don't think for a second you're going to make dinner out of us," Shirona growled. "We all three of us will kick your ass."

Nitrine bared his teeth again. "I sincerely doubt that, but if you can get me something savory, I might be able to think straight."

Shirona agreed to let Gastrodon stay behind as collateral (that mouthful of boogers was in no danger of being eaten) while she and Cynthia went home to the nearest Carl's Jr. and ordered every meaty sandwich off the menu, paying for it with Monopoly money. They watched Nitrine wolf it down gratefully, not pausing to take a breath except for between sandwiches, even as they told him their whole story. He finished as they did, and he belched. "Sounds like you guys have had quite an adventure. What's it feel like to be stuck in Hallucinatouch's body?"

"Pretty weird, with four arms and all, but it's cool to have all her powers." Cynthia waved her lightsaber.

"Sounds a bit easier than what we've been through. We, referring a few rebel friends of mine that used to be with me. We went our separate ways to avoid eating each other." He gave a sad sigh. "I heard at least some of them went back to Nightmare because they couldn't take the hunger, the Nutella, the _humans_. Weak bastards."

Shirona asked, "Who was with you?"

"A Mohawk-wearing, first-level dog thing named Ceruno, and some twin Italian siblings with bunny ears—they're the only ones I can remember now."

"Not Wrenn or Lucent?"

Nitrine immediately bristled. "Negatrine captured my Lucie! Last I heard—and this was awhile ago—Wrenn was head of a resistance in Nightmare dedicated to taking Nega down. I don't think the resistance is very big, but considering he hasn't come here yet, it's probably keeping him busy. All the second-levels are Nega's personal servants, and he executed most of the first-levels. Reala and NiGHTS, among others. Meanwhile, third-levels and the clone army run rampant like soldiers looking for dissenters who still live there, presumably to kill them off, as well."

"What about you? Do you have a plan now that you're here all by yourself?"

He sat for a long, silent minute before he gave a slow shake of his head. He responded, "First and foremost, I just want to free Lucent. I always fantasize that I'll be able to get back to him, and we would run away together and form a resistance to take down Negatrine and his loyalists. It seems like a pipe dream, but I believe that somehow, some way, I can make it a reality."

Cynthia toyed with her lightsaber and formed it into a flyswatter, contemplating it in her hands. "I would like to help you with that," she said.

Nitrine blinked at her. "You? How could _you_ help?"

"Something of that magnitude is too great for you to accomplish on your own. You need all the help you can get. Plus, Negatrine's takeover might correlate with me going missing for years and years and not remembering anything at all. If that's true, us kicking his ass could unlock the secret to why the world went to shit."

* * *

"You can stop fanning now, Jackle, thanks," said Negatrine, waving him off. The orange maren erected his palm fan and glared down at the short first-level maren before him, whose feet rested on poor Hesper's head. He rose up from the enormous throne and twirled around once in his evil overlord cape of awesome to look at his uncle with an infuriating smirk. "And don't forget to _smile_~"

Jackle strained his signature maniacal grin as he watched his new master sashay out of the great throne room, trailed by that odd pixel-block bodyguard of his. Ugh, how he _loathed _being his personal servant. It was always, "Jackle, fan me; Jackle, my bodyguard and I are parched, fetch us some drinks; Jackle, do this; Jackle, do that." Oh, that nephew of his was lucky to even have a bodyguard. More than once, he had ideas on how to end his scornful existence. Still, he had to admit that he was a bit better off than Hesper the footstool.

If he had to choose between this and Negatrine having his clone army attack Shirona and her home at full strength, though…

After visiting Bomamba briefly to steal one of her countless pets, Negatrine and Missingno wandered through the grand front courtyard of the castle grounds, near the invisible fence behind which Cerberus stayed. They were not as dumb he had once thought; it only took them a couple weeks to realize where the boundaries of the electric fence ended. All three hounds followed them along the boundary, their lips curled into snarls, as Nega cooed, "Ooh, who's a good, vicious guard dog~? You are, my precious, unpredictable puppy! I bet you want a ball-cat, don't you? Who wants a ball-cat?"

The sight of the chew toy seemed to distract the legged pair in front, but the third head's yellow glower never left Negatrine even when the other two went to give chase when he threw it. Nega and Missingno moved on.

Eventually they came to a lake with a tower rising up just a few stories out of the surface; they dove downwards, past the hordes of famished fishymarens that attacked each other for the unswallowed food in each other's mouths. They came to the bottom of the tower at the lake's bottom, where Gulpo used his brute strength to raise a great iron door for them. They surfaced at a broad flight of stairs that gently spiraled up and began to ascend, no feet ever making contact with the steps. Just beyond each energy door they passed sat a restrained first-level he deemed potentially dangerous, all of them living out their miserable lives until torture changed their minds about rebelling, or their execution dates. A couple of them held disobedient second-levels like Puffy or Donbalon, their fate the same.

Nega paused at one in particular and weakened the door just enough to allow him to pass through. "Hello, darling."

The prisoner moved his head only enough to see him through his messy blond bangs, shifting his ball-and-chained limbs with discomfort.

"I've decided to get a massage from Chamelan on a whimsy. Would you like to join me?" The only response was a low, throaty growl.

Nega frowned. "Come on, Lucent! Are you really going to live like this—in a dungeon with little food and companionship and no fresh air—just because you're pissed off that I'm the new king of Nightmare? I've offered to let you come with me and live like royalty! You could ride around on Gillwing and the world would be yours." He heaved a sigh and only turned around. "You know who to consult when you change your mind. Ta-ta."


	7. Chapter 7

Shirona folded her arms. "So it's settled; we're going to help with the resistance effort against Negatrine. The real question is, where do we start?"

Nitrine shrugged. "That _is_ a good question. If we just appear in the middle of Nightmare, we'd all be in immediate danger."

Gastrodon puffed out her chest and tried to stand tall in spite of her missing foot. She suggested, "We could try to fight off all the nightmarens that try to stop us. Shirona, at least, has strong Pokemon."

"Marens are way stronger than you Pokeyman. You wouldn't last five minutes being attacked by a hundred Negas. Whips, cannons, super strength…"

They heard a deep, recognizable voice from beyond their spot in the foliage. "Girls! Are you okay?"

Gastrodon leapt with glee. "Yes, Bluey, we're just fine!"

Bluey stepped his enormous, mix-and-match body over to them, and Nitri almost shat a brick. After a brief explanation, he said to them, "I figured you guys would be on board that ship, so I came here when I saw it beach on the shore."

Cynthia inquired, "Did you spot Hallucinacookie?"

"No, sorry. :"

"Oh. Well, that ship was Emilio's, and it got attacked, but a ton of treasure was left behind. I don't really know who would have wanted to kidnap a Rhydon, though. And then, we learned from Nitrine that there might be an organized resistance against Negatrine, Nightmare's dictator. We were just puzzling over how we could learn more about it."

"A puzzle, I'm sure. This is a random question, but can we go to Nutellaland? I kinda want to get the taste of sewer out of my mouth, and the smell of chocolate is so tempting."

Much to Nitrine's chagrin, Shirona plotholed them to the Nutella Mainland, and they skipped along the toasty streets to look for the Nutella River. Nitrine and his famished companions certainly did a number on the civilization; almost none of the remaining graham cracker buildings stood intact. They caught a glimpse of someone in a tiny shop change the sign from Open to Closed. Gastrodon shrieked, "OH MAH GAW, IT'S THIS ONE!"

She body-slammed the door down in excitement. True enough, the shopkeeper wore a paper bag over her or his head. They hissed, "Hey! The sign says it's closed!"

The group cornered the nervous little shopkeeper. "This One! Maybe you could help us with our Nightmare issue!"

This One tore the paper bag off of her head to reveal not only that he was not This One, but that he actually didn't have a face. "I am not This One. The name is Grace."

A bunch of exclamation points floated above Cynthia's head. "Hey, you're a maren, too!"

"Yes. I made my home here after the takeover, but then other marens like HIM"—Grace pointed to Nitrine—"started eating everything in sight."

"I kind of like not starving, thanks," the brown-eyed maren grumbled. "Especially in a land MADE of sweets."

The three non-dream creatures browsed the numerous masks that hung on the walls of the tiny shop. Shirona nudged Gastrodon. "He's the Happy Mask Salesman."

Grace shrugged. "You could say that. I wanted to give my wares to my fellow rebels, but again, they were more interested in gobbling up Nutellaland. I am a master of disguise~" He took a Wizemask off the wall and put it on his faceless head; Nitrine quailed and hid behind the nearby counter. "See?"

Cynthia grinned. "Say, we could use your skills to find the resistance group in Nightmare—you could sneak though fairly easily without being detected, right?"

Grace tapped his chin as he contemplated, and he bobbed his head. "I believe I could. Mega-dicks has clones running amuck; I could disguise myself as one to travel and then swap to someone else's face when I come upon the resistance group. Then I could meet you all back here to report what's going on."

As he dug through his faces, the pink sea slug took one more look at the masks that hung around the tiny store. A dark-blue one with a yellow star on the front stood out to her the most. "Garchomp!"

Her trainer's head shot up at the word. "Huh? What about her?"

"She's a mask! How did she get to be a mask?" All eyes turned to Grace, who shrugged and elucidated he had found it when the first wave of famished nightmarens invaded the humanverse half a decade ago.

Shirona gazed at the mask deeply, musing, "She may have become a mask in the same way you somehow became a cookie, Cynthia." She handed the mask back to Gastrodon, who decided to keep it safe in her belly-drawer.

Meanwhile, Bluey had wandered out of the store to go find the chocolate creek he originally aimed to drink from. "It's nice to be out of that sewer. I never get to vacation~" Although it was just past sunset now, the twisting stream appeared black on the ground, dotted with the white stones of marshmallows and logs made of salty pretzels. As he bent down to take a lap of the hazelnutty spread, he heard the snap of a pretzel-log, and he straightened up immediately. His Magmortar arm-cannons smoked with ammo, and he pointed it at a spot in the creek. Within a half a minute, the source of the noise rose up from the dark body of liquid Nutella; he found himself staring at an avian shape that was just over five times his height. The bird's outstretched wings glowed brightly underneath the coating of chocolatey muck it wore.

"What the hell is _that_?"

Shirona led the way out to where Bluey stood frozen, arm-cannon pointed at the creature from the creek. Nitrine reached into the pocket of his hoodie for his whip, ready to assist his new friend, but then the pokemonster seemed to loosen up a bit and lower his guard. "Is that you, 'M?"

"How do you know me?" squawked the odd bird.

"I'm one of the clone-trainer's Pokemon, called Bluey. We helped you with your glitch-hybrid problem some time back."

The large glitchmon lowered her wings. "Ah, yes, I do recall. It's been awhile, and you have certainly changed much."  
Bluey chuckled a bit, slapping the ground once with his broad, flat tail. "Not you. But what are you doing here, so far from Glitch City? Are Missingno and the others keeping well?"

Gastrodon cocked her head. "Others? You know the glitchmons?" Her beastly friend gave her a curt nod.

'M answered, "No. Our floating city drifted near the Sinnoh region, and my brother Missingno felt something amiss. After leaving to investigate—"

Cynthia chimed in, "He never came home. Right? That's a familiar story to all of us by now." She briefly described her own mystery.

'M seemed to nod her pixel head. "An intriguing coincidence. I tried to look for Missingno, but then three massive dragon-types emerged from worlds beyond to duke it out; for safety, I went into hiding. The entire region was a mess when I emerged, and I sought the source of their turmoil. And my efforts were fruitful."

She remembered her Pokemon's words. _The dragon trio was visibly uneasy for awhile…_ "What did you find, exactly?"

The bird turned about. "I can show you. It is on the Sinnoh mainland, and considering what you've said, I think you might be very interested.

Hop on my back." She allowed Bluey, Shirona, and Gastrodon to climb up behind her wings, her thin body and vast size easily able to support them. Cynthia was about to join them, but Nitrine took her arm.

"You can fly with me," he offered. "Make a balloon or something, and I can pull you along."

Gastrodon asked, "Are we still going to meet Face back here later?"

"Yeah. Later."

H-Touch!Champion focused her mind on making a basket large enough for her to squeeze comfortably into, attached to several large helium balloons. Nitrine grabbed onto some ropes that dangled from the basket and followed the glowing glitch bird across the sea back to the region's mainland. It was quite awhile before they found the office-supply forest that Gastrodon led them traveling through earlier. 'M broke through desk-lamp trees when she landed, nearly knocking down a decrepit sign nearby the floating asphalt path: The Cheap-o Mart. The Pokemon all shuddered, as did the ground below them, when they laid eyes on the convenience store. The building was dilapidated and broken, split in half through the middle as though it were a puppet for a hand coming up from the earth's core. However, the most eye-catching detail was the glowing blue-and-pink sutures that held the "mouth" of the split store shut.

Cynthia climbed out of her basket and approached the sutures. Beyond them, a mysterious world pulsated and vibrated. Cackling and electric currents sounded. "What is this?"

'M responded simply: "Something that should not exist. Clearly."

"Don't touch it!" Gastrodon blurted fearfully. "I don't want to lose you again!"


	8. Chapter 8

**The Crackverse is... just what its name implies. Stupid crap happens in there.**

**Cyril is the male version of Cynthia. His story will be explained later on.**

* * *

"I think I just got an epiphany," Cynthia murmured, staring deeply into the odd world blocked off by the sutures. "I had to go to the store that day… how could we have not thought of coming here?"

"What are you saying, Cynthia?" Gastrodon asked. Her heart pounded as the earth tremors grew stronger by the minute.

"Think about it. Nobody can answer where I've been the past, what, seven-ish years? Nobody's apparently seen Garchomp or Missingno around, either. This THING made the dragons of Sinnoh myth nervous. This could be something big, guys. Maybe I'm _supposed_ to have a look in here." She materialized a sledgehammer and started hacking at the walls near the bottom of the sutures, breaking open a space large enough to crawl through without touching them.

Shirona's brows creased with worry. "But what if you're not? What if something happens?"

"Who knows what will happen unless I at least try?" With that, the gastromaren wriggled past the glowing stitches into the strange, sparking world.

So. Much. Crazed laughter. This place truly did make the Distortion World seem normal.

"Eheheh~ Hey, baby!"

Who the heck…?

"Dayum, girl! You've got more curves than a racetrack!"

In the real world, the earthquake intensified rapidly. In the fading sunlight, the group just barely noticed Mt. Coronet beginning to crumble; more immediately, the light from the stitched-up Cheap-o Mart beamed brilliantly, and the group retreated back a number of yards for safety. The desk-lamp trees of the forest spewed liquid light, and the sticky-note leaves faded into abhorrent hissing noises. 'M went airborne with her three passengers, along with Nitrine, staying near the tiny building. Bluey had to hold Gastrodon down because of her intentions to leap from 'M's back for the safety of her beloved trainer. "But look!" she shrieked anxiously. "The store is going to fall apart any second!"

In the distance, the cry of one of the dragons of legend sounded, and Mt. Coronet began to collapse in on itself and sink into the earth. The valleys around the mountain range leapt up into peaks. The light faded from within the Cheap-o Mart, and Shirona dove from the back of the glitch bird into a plothole below. As Nitrine began to mutter where she might have been going, Bluey gasped. "What's going to happen to Reiji-san? He could be trapped in the sewer! We have to find a pipe entrance!"

'M groaned, "I can't be in two places at once…" She dumped Gastrodon into Nitrine's arms. "Wait here to see what that crazy blonde lady is doing; we'll go see what we can do for Reiji-san." Before the nightmaren could even breathe a response, she flew along the ground with remarkable grace.

Seconds crawled by like hours as they watched the great mountain fall and morph into a fissure as the whole landscape was thrown into chaos. Suddenly, a terrified scream caught their attention, and Nitrine soon found himself gripping Shirona around the torso and waist with his legs. She hugged Cynthia for dear life. "Where's that bird?"

"Went to find Reiji."

Shirona willed open a plothole above Nitrine's head. "Let's get out of here. They can look for us at the mask shack." Nitrine darted upwards into it, and they appeared right outside the spoken destination. Gastrodon wasted no time in getting between her and Cynthia, licking her trainer all over to clean her of dirt and drywall. The Champion had regained her old body and clothes, which were holey and torn, but the same as she had always worn. She was clearly not fully cognizant of her surroundings; she could barely speak words to answer her pink slug's eager questions.

Nitrine pulled the Pokemon off of her. "Give her some air, for Pete's sake!" To Shirona, he asked, "What happened in there?"  
Shirona shrugged. "When the light faded, the building must have turned back into little more than a run-down little shop. I got to her as a rack of shelves fell on top of us, and a good thing I did, too."

"Mmph…"

Gastrodon shivered and shook in excitement, and it took all of her willpower to keep from glomping her dazed trainer; she latched onto Shirona instead. Cynthia stretched her arms and felt herself all over. "Hey, my body's back."

"What happened in there? We were all so worried!"

Cynthia took in a deep breath and began to make gestures with her hands, but for a full minute, she couldn't seem to find just the right words. She paused and sat up, reaching into the hip pocket of her pants to pull out a little package. Getting up slowly, she and her companions went into Grace's mask shack and hit the light switch, discovering that it was a packet of Emiliobrand laxative suppositories.

"What on earth—!"

Gastrodon blurted, "I think I know what happened."

"Me, too. I ate the Almond Joy cake, got stopped up by the coconut, went to Reiji's, went to the Cheap-o Mart, got THESE… and opened up the Crackverse. I think that's where I went, too, in H-Touch's body. It was... indescribable and illogical and I never want to go there ever again."

Shirona scoffed. "Why did you buy Emiliobrand? Whyyy?"

"That's beside the point. When I bought and used it, the Crackverse opened up and caused all this weird and crazy shit to happen. I still can't remember anything at all between then and waking up as a cookie, though."

Nitrine injected, "That doesn't explain anything about Negatrine, though. How he took over or made clones or anything."

"Most certainly," the plothole pimp suggested, "Missingno has something to do with it. And Cynthia going into the Crackverse or wherever may have done something to Mt. Coronet; it's collapsed."

"It has?! D:"

Gastrodon nodded. "I heard Palkia going over there. More than likely, Dialga and Giratina are going with it to check things out."

Soon after, 'M joined them. "I figured you'd be here."

Immediately, Gastrodon and Nitrine wanted to know, "How is Reiji? Where's Bluey?"

"The human's condition is critical. I couldn't find a hospital that hadn't been ruined by the mainland tremors, so I took them to glitch city to let my siblings look after them. Cynthia, are you alright now?"

"I guess. I couldn't find Missingno, though. Just the Crackverse." She recounted her theory of the day the strange world opened up.

'M only nodded. "That makes sense. Everyone could feel something was wrong—the dragons and we glitchmons, at least. But it seems that the Crackverse has closed now. What of Missingno? Why is everything turning inside-out on the mainland?"

Gastrodon suggested, "Maybe we could try going to Mt. Coronet and seeing for ourselves? Or, at least, asking the Coronet dragon trio? They can probably explain something."

"There really isn't much else we can do right now to get answers." Cynthia gave a bob of her head. "But, we have no idea when Grace will return, likely with valuable information to share. One of us should stay behind."

The glitch Pokemon volunteered herself. "I can slip through the cracks and crevices of a caved-in mountain, if I need to find you."

* * *

"What do you mean, something has happened?!" snarled Negatrine, his pupils contracting to fine slits. "Be specific, you useless creature!"

Clawz folded back his ears, hunched his shoulders as though he were about to be reprimanded. "According to my division of third-level nightmarens, sir, the rift in the Night Dimension which leads directly into the waking world—the one that had been patched up—and rather poorly, at that—it has disappeared!"

"I demand to know _how_."

"My division of minions is busily working to figure that out, Your Highness."

Negatrine planted his feet on the ground to pace, a hand on his chin, his evil overlord cape of awesome flowing along his heels. "This is impossible. We've run out of _time_. The horned one hasn't finished my mind-control device yet, has he?"

"I know not, sir; I was not put in charge—"

"Shut _up_. I wasn't speaking to you," snapped the dictator.

Missingno, who had been hovering quietly nearby, spoke softly: "The horned one has said that he does not know how to create such a device. Repeatedly. What do you plan to do from here on out?"

Nega paused in his pacing. "I know of one way, but that way is much, much too complicated. I'll be right back." He warped out of the throne room and into another area of his kingdom, a high-up tower opposite the prisoner's dungeon. It appeared like something straight from the countless fairy tales of princesses that stayed locked up, guarded by dragons; it was like a simple apartment, the main bedroom and bathroom up at the top, a thin spiral staircase down to a comfortable living room and full kitchen. There was no door leading out, and the only window, located in the bedroom, was blocked by bars. Presently, a blond man stood staring out of it dreamily, reminiscent.

"Cyyy~"

He shuddered and whirled about. "Oh. Of course. Negatrine."

"You never seem pleased to see me anymore."

"You rarely come to visit me. When will you take me around the castle grounds, like you promised?"

"Eventually. Unfortunately, there has been a change of plans."

"Plans…?"

Nega held Cyril's face in his hands, caressing the stubbly surface of his chin. "You've done plenty of research on the Distortion World, correct?"

"Yes…"

"So, if something were to happen in the real world, the same would happen there."

"That is right, although I hypothesize that for major catastrophes, Giratina has to be there to set things straight. It alone has the ability to do that."

The big, medium blue eyes went blank as he stared not into the face of his human, but past it, into his own mind. "Hm, an abrupt change of plans, indeed. But, I think I can improvise."

"A change to what plans?" Cyril pulled away from the nightmaren. "Why don't you tell me anything? You promised we would rule together, but after I helped you overthrow Wizeman, you put me in this little apartment-looking place with no way out but a barred window 'to keep me safe.' What's going on?"

Negatrine blatantly avoided his question when he stated, "Your help was greatly appreciated, and I'm sure I will be needing it again very soon." In his own odd display of fondness towards the human, he grabbed the bottom half of the other's face gently with one hand, covering his entire mouth. "Ooh, I know~! I'll send someone to bring you my kitten. He'll keep you company. Now, if you'll excuse me."

He disappeared back to the throne room and got up in Clawz's face once again. His eyes, though still burning, had softened some. "Begone, and keep me posted about what may have caused the closing of the rift." Turning to his glitchmon, he said, "I'm off to announce a change of plans. Be a friend and alert the horned one that his time has run out."


	9. Chapter 9

**In case you're curious as to why Cynthia, Shirona, and Nitrine can understand Gastrodon and Bluey but not the dragons, in my headcanon, they can only do so because they formed a bond with the aforementioned Pokemon. The dragons are wild and unfamiliar with them; therefore, they need a translator.**

* * *

With a shudder, Jackle scooped the ice cubes from the freezer into the glass with nothing but his gloved hand. His new master had a habit of chewing on ice after he had done a fair bit of angry shouting; he had ordered the servant to fetch him a glass full of it for later. Negatrine was currently busy in the assembly room, giving instructions to an audience of clones on how to execute the change of plans. Jackle gazed at the glass and wondered if maybe he could slip something into it, something that would make the dictator sick and put him out of commission for...ever. He jumped a bit when he heard someone enter the kitchen, and he quickly turned around to see who it was. Pah, just a Nega-clone.

Wait a minute. "Aren't you supposed to be in the assembly room?" he asked, approaching him and the door.

"I'm part of a different sector," answered the clone. "Tell me, where does Master Negatrine keep the key to the voltage lock?"

"Voltage lock?"

"The thing on Cerberus's fence that changes the voltage."

Jackle's expression became one of surprise; there were so many things wrong with this question that it wasn't funny. The voltage seemed fine, considering Cerberus hadn't escaped the boundaries and attacked everyone yet. Furthermore, wouldn't the other already know, as a clone? "Why are you asking me this?"

"Because the voltage needs to be changed. Would be a real shame if Cerberus had, I dunno, somehow escaped and caused a headache for the rest of the clone army~" Jackle understood immediately when the Nega-clone smiled and winked.

"Oh, I see. Since you're a Nega-clone, I was sure you would know that Mega-dicks keeps it in one of the pockets in his cape."

"Ah, right. I must have missed that memo." The clone turned to go, revealing the unique number that was printed on the backs of the vests of all the clones. This one in particular was 129.

But Jackle knew that there were only 128 clones.

* * *

Nitrine and Gastrodon did most of the work in clearing the way downwards through the blocked tunnels, and Shirona was keen on plotholing away any stones from the ceiling of the tunnels which threatened to fall on them. Progress was painfully slow due to the caution that they needed to take in order to avoid being injured as they dug along. Furthermore, being the middle of the night and nobody having gotten any sleep at all, exhaustion made the going even tougher. Gastrodon was about to utter a complaint when she was cut off by a magenta-colored crescent of light that turned the rocks before them into mere dust. Up above their heads, the great dragon Palkia prepared another Spatial Rend attack.

Shirona called, "Hey, Palkia! Wait up!" The dragon paused and looked down at group. Floating in the air nearby was Dialga, clearing away more of the tunnels with his massive metal tail. Both of them gave short, sharp roars.

Gastrodon let the others know, "They're demanding to know what we're doing here."

Cynthia explained, "We're trying to figure out what happened with Mt. Coronet. Was it something to do with the Cheap-o Mart?"

The two creatures glanced at each other and then gave a low growl, and Dialga continued to bash through the tunnels downward. Gastrodon translated, "They say, 'You know about that?'"

"Yes, we do. I was the cause of all the weird things happening; I opened up that weird portal you tried to fix, the Crackverse. But when I closed the Crackverse, this happened to the mountain. Do you have any idea what's going on?"

Palkia: "That portal was nothing but trouble! It disrupted the natural order of things some time ago."

Dialga: "Eight years, ten months, and four days ago, to be precise!"

Palkia: "Strange human-looking monsters emerged from within it and wreaked havoc on the land. We argued and fought over how to deal with the portal."

Dialga: "Giratina showed up, too, because our fighting was ruining his landscape as well as our own. Then he presumably went back home without a word."

Palkia: "Our attacks did no good close it, so we sewed it shut. That seemed to contain it. Then, this happened."

Dialga: "We are digging our way through to get to the Distortion World. More than likely, there is another portal there."

Palkia: "One that Giratina needs to get off his lazy tail and fix!"

Shirona nudged Cynthia. "If there is another Crackverse opening there, maybe we can solve the problem of the world going to shit by shutting that one for good."

A shooting star streaked across the night sky before changing course and heading straight for them. Dialga was prepared to bat it away, but it turns out it was only 'M. "I come bearing news, but not from Grace," she squawked. "This info comes from someone by the name of Deca."

Nitrine leapt upon the glitchmon with excitement. "Deca came back? What did she say, come on, spit it out, what did she say?!"

"News on the resistance is that it is seven members big, including herself but excluding Grace. I cannot remember the names of all the people there, but Grace mentioned your name, and she wanted me to tell you that Wrenn is alive and well." Nitrine squeed and glomped everyone present with joy before she could continue. "As news for me, Missingno works for Negatrine, too. He serve as a bodyguard and is the reason Negatrine has clones. I've been told that a 'change of plans' is on the dictator's end, and the resistance group has a plan of their own to fight back. Cerberus is kept locked behind an electric fence whose voltage switch is controlled by the turn of a key; their plan is to get the key with Grace's help and release Cerberus to rampage around Nightmare. That will busy the Nega-clone army and possibly ruin the third-level population, which is already dwindling. While that happens, others will sneak into the prison tower, release all the prisoners that await their death sentences, and that's when the true fight will begin."

Gastrodon commented, "Seven or eight members is really small... and who knows how many prisoners there are. And then there's... us. Will all of us be enough to overthrow the army? What about Missingno's cloning abilities?"

"Well, 'M might be able to talk some sense into Missingno," Shirona suggested. "Maybe he'll even clone us so we outnumber them."

"I'm buddies with Giratina," Nitrine injected. "And we both hate Nega. I'm sure he'd love to help."

Dialga gave a grunt: "There's still the issue of what has happened to this world as a result of the portal. You, Champion woman, must help us deliberate a plan to fix things, since you are apparently able to close this shit."

Cynthia nodded. "I understand." At that moment, Palkia slashed away the final layer of stone and revealing a large bubble, its surface streaked with soapy rainbows and radiating a distorting aura.

* * *

Red eyes snapped open at the sound of unwelcome visitors, and immediately the gray, serpentine body of a Pokemon thrashed underneath several miles of dream-chains that crisscrossed over it and pinned it to the floor of its cage. The chains rattled and clanked as about fifteen Nega-clones began to unhook and unwrap them, still holding them tightly to prevent Giratina from making too many sudden moves. His muscle power was only slightly outmatched by their excess strength. They walked him cautiously out of the container and then yanked their chains into the air, enticing him to fly. He followed, beating his odd, gaseous wings. He put up somewhat of a fight but then stopped when he realized they were leading him exactly where he wanted to go.

The rift lay near the black abyss, where Wizeman once stood staring randomly into space. Giratina flew into the portal and writhed as he morphed into Origin Forme, freeing himself from most of the chains, including the awkward muzzle he had been forced to wear. Now was his chance! As he turned around to close the portal in a fashion familiar to any Nega-Nitrine readers, the Nega-clones met him with boner-blasts! The attacks burned straight through his skin and muscle, frying him black on the inside; he was dotted with massive wounds that bled heavily, and his pained shrieks echoed through his quiet home. He fought back fiercely when they tried to chain him down again, firing his own blasts: Aura Sphere, Dragon Pulse, Will-o-Wisp! A third of them fell away, but when the others threatened to blast him again, he made a run for it.

One of the clones met him with a gas ball to the face, and with a cough, he launched a blind Dragon Pulse at the clone he believed to be in front of him. The energy blast collided with the face of Palkia, who was blown away. Dialga, who had entered the Distortion World bubble entrance afterwards, tackled the Ghost-type for its violent display, not noticing the Nega-clones that hovered nearby to watch.

"What's going on?" Cynthia muttered as she came in on Gastrodon's back. Nitrine and Shirona also came in together and observed the misunderstanding as Palkia rejoined its temporal counterpart, ganging up on Giratina.

Negatrine had watched the unleashing of his captive beast with satisfaction from high in the air, and as he turned to go back to his throne room, he was met with a Nega-clone. "What?"

"Sir, I just received word from another clone that Lucent finally wishes to take you up on your offer."

"Oh really?" A nightmarish grin of excitement and triumph split his face. "Tell Missingno to meet me at the prison tower with the pony immediately~"


	10. Chapter 10

**Hesper is a little servant 'maren of my friend Celest's creation.**

**Also, yes, Touch has the ability to change sizes in the dream world so she can be ridden like a pony.  
**

* * *

The quartet watched the struggle for a panicked moment before Shirona shouted, "Stop, stop! Giratina, what's going on?"

A snarl rumbled in Nitrine's throat, and he pointed. "Look, Nega-clones!" They were encouraging the scuffle by shooting an occasional boner blast into the dragonpile, resulting in a scream from one of the Coronet trio as it ate through their flesh. Nitrine flew off at breakneck pace to tackle one of them before they could launch another attack, but then two more came to the clone's aid.

Giratina dragged Dialga away and slammed it into a stony landmass that began to gush lava. Gastrodon used her Muddy Water attack to cool the lava before it could make contact with either of the dueling beasts, while Cynthia shouted, "Giratina, stop! We only want to ask you to fix the Crackverse hole!"

One of the remaining seven clones called, "They're trying to stand in the way of the plan! Let's take them prisoner; I'm sure the Boss will be pleased."

"You're not laying a hand on my Cynthia!" Gastrodon stood protectively in front of her trainer and spewed Sludge Bombs from her mouth at the approaching clones. They dodged them, and one whipped out his cannon to shoot an ice ball at her. At point-blank range, it turned her into a solid block of ice, while Cynthia's legs and anterior were stuck fast to the platform on which she stood. She squealed from the sudden change in temperature.

Shirona began to will open a plothole beneath them, but she herself had to dive into one to avoid the grabby arms of another clone. The one who fired the ice ball punched the frozen mass to break Cynthia free and carried her away by her wrists. A different one did the same for Gastrodon; the three that had pounced Nitrine had managed to render him unconscious, and they followed the others in warping back to the Night Dimension.

The dragons continued to duke it out and argue in the meanwhile.

* * *

They arrived back in the throne room to find only Jackle and Hesper there. The former's eyes widened at the sight of the Champion, who gasped. "Jackle, you have to help!"

"Where's the Boss?" demanded the clone that carried Cynthia, who set her down on the floor before the throne.

Jackle only shrugged. "Heck if I know."

"Ugh." To the other clones, the first one ordered, "Watch these guys; I'll go out and look for him." He hurried out of the immense room.

The clone who carried the Gastro-ice block teased Cynthia, "Don't even think about asking that peasant for help." He gestured to Jackle, who snarled. "He only takes orders from the Boss."

Cynthia, shuddering from the icy chill, gave him a pained look. "J-Jackle, w-what happened to y-y-you?"

"Negatrine showed up one day to the shop," he elucidated, "and told me he wanted my services. I refused, and he implied that he would get his whole clone army and ravage the house—and Shirona with it." He closed his eyes tightly and turned his head. "I almost lost her once before and would hate for her to get hurt again, especially if I can stop it in any way."

"Oh… Th-That's un-nders-s-standable. S-so what d-do you do?"

"I'm just a servant. I serve him food and drink, fan him, bring him entertainment, and basically do anything else he asks of me."

"What ab-bout her?" She pointed to Hesper.

"She's just a footstool. She gets breaks whenever Nega isn't here, but she's not allowed to talk or move."

"Sounds b-boring."

Gastrodon's Nega-clone scoffed. "You ain't seen nothing until you've seen the pathetic souls in the prison tower. You'll probably be headed there shortly once we get word from the Boss."

The prison tower. 'M mentioned that place. They were going to release all the detainees when Wrenn's resistance sets its plan into motion.

At that moment, in trotted a certain oversized, shiny Gastrodon with the king himself seated upon her back, the Nega-clone following behind. She gave a little squeak when she saw her best friend and her trainer trapped in the ice, but she did not pause on her way to the throne. Nitrine came to by the time Negatrine planted his big fat butt on his fancy chair, and the three clones had to hold him in place to keep him from maiming his blue-eyed doppelganger. He grinned, "Long time no see, Lame-trine. That's quite a belly you have there."

Nitrine only demanded, "Where is my Lucent?!"

"Oh, he's upstairs, getting himself cleaned up. He needs to look his best if he wants to fill the role of my queen." His grin only widened at the other's disbelieving face.

"No way! He'd never rule beside you!"

"I kept him in prison until he said he did, so obviously he does." The remark made Nitrine emit a vicious, animalistic snarl. Negatrine then turned to Cynthia. "As for you, I'm not quite sure what business you have here except to be the hero of this story, so~" He waved them off. "Take those two to the prison tower. Put Nitrine on the table with his fat belly down and strap him down good. And for the slug, I'm sure Cerberus will enjoy having an ice cube to lick."

Touch gasped, "aw nu! Master Negatrine, i can't let u do that!"

Nega got up in her face, his pupils thin slivers, and with the same beastly snarl that Nitrine gave him, he said, "So you think you can tell /me/ what I can and can't do? You know, I was very kind to let you be my steed after Reala passed away, but since you're getting to be a bit air-headed, I think I should show you just how disposable you really are! Jackle! Go get the salt block that's in the pantry."

The last thing Cynthia and Nitrine heard as they were dragged out of the room was poor Touch begging for her life.

* * *

He sent him up here for a reason; Lucent knew that. When the Nega-clone had mentioned that he and the others had captured prisoners, "including _him_," Negatrine had immediately offered to switch ponies; Missingno would escort Lucent up to Nega's bedroom, and the latter would ride Touch back to the throne room to see the captives. Although Negatrine had invited him to make himself at home in the bedroom and use anything to groom himself—any razor or toothbrush or body soap he wished—the blond nightmaren remained anxious for his dear mate.

Even still, it felt nice to freshen up a bit after spending so LONG in there. It had been years since Nega threw him in that prison cell, maybe six or so years, not long after the dictator had overthrown Wizeman. He hadn't been allowed to change his clothes or bathe on his own in all that time. As he toweled himself off in front of the grand mirror, he noticed the damage those years had caused him: his muscles were weak and scrawny from limited use; he had cavities in a few of his teeth; his skin was especially pale from the lack of exposure to natural light.

He was in the middle of brushing his teeth with an unused toothbrush he heard the bedroom door open, and he saw Negatrine approaching in the mirror. He gave Lucent's bare bum a playful swat and smiled at him. "I bet that shower felt nice, hm?"

"Absolutely~" Lucent spat into the sink and rinsed his mouth out before the other tried to steal a kiss. He forced a smile. "I think now it's my turn to help you feel nice."

He put his arms around Negatrine's torso—the other had some height on him since he was wearing boots—and coaxed him to step backwards. With one hand, he rubbed his back; with the other, he searched the cape, trying desperately to find that pocket. He fought to keep from clenching his muscles when Nega grabbed his rear-end, fought to keep his mind focused when he imposed a tongue-kiss on him. The backs of the others legs touched the edge of his wide, fancy bed, and they panted against each other's faces until Negatrine hissed,

"Missingno, why are you still in the room?"

The glitch block had been standing silently in a corner, but when addressed, he wordlessly floated out of the room and shut the door behind him.

"Now then…" The dictator kicked off his boots while Lucent undid his cape, tossing it onto the bed. His body thoroughly enjoyed Nega's hand gingerly rubbing his finals, though he inwardly despised it. But if he needed to do this to get that key for Grace, then it was just a means to accomplish an end—an end to Negatrine's tyrannical rule. One unpleasant bedroom act was nothing compared to the atrocities he had done unto the whole Night Dimension.


	11. Chapter 11

The Nega-clone was greeted with three glares and vicious snarls. "Here, mutt!" He kicked the slippery ice block along the paved ground, across the boundary of the invisible fence. The twin heads of Cerberus gave a curious sniff, and they started to lick at the ice. The action caused it to slide around on the ground, so that when it wandered too far from one dog, the other had a turn to lick. The third head kept his glare on the Nega-clone until he was out of sight, and then turned to watch his siblings and their simple-minded activity.

Their hot tongues eventually thawed out the ice enough so that Gastrodon could break it with a shot of acidic sludge. She shook off the rest of the cold and tilted her head waaaay back to look up at the canine trio. The red and blue twins stared at her with confusion, but when she started to run away, they snapped their teeth at her. She barely dodged the hooked claws of a swiping paw, and she shot Sludge Bombs to deter their hungry fangs. She scrambled the feck away from them as quickly as her little legs would carry her until she saw that they had stopped chasing her. They had reached the boundary; extending their necks beyond it would result in a fierce shock. They could only growl and bark at her as she hurried away to find a hiding place. Luckily, the Nega-clones that periodically passed by paid the noisy houndmaren little mind.

Gastrodon had been completely cognizant in that ice block. She knew that Touch was being punished for attempting to stand up for her—she grieved the loss of her best friend as she stood against one of the cobblestone walls of the castle—as well as that Cynthia and Nitrine had been thrown in jail. Her goal now was to find the prison tower. Maybe it had a window she could sneak into and rescue her allies. She cast her gaze over the great castle, trying to decide which one it would be, before spotting several windows on a towering protrusion above the main part of the castle. "Let me explore there, first..."

She snuck along until she reached the wall outside the castle and then used her stickiness to climb up with ease, peeking in a window she passed. It looked into a hallway with stairs covered by a fancy red carpet, the walls decorated with exquisite paintings. It clearly wasn't a prison... but it didn't hurt to explore. Who knew, maybe appearances could be deceiving~ She continued to climb until she reached the window near the top of the extension. It was open, so she took a gander.

Oh, my gosh. Oh. My. GOSH. It was him, it was Negatrine himself, stretched out in bed and cuddling with...Nitrine's brother? A blush passed over her face when she realized they were both nude. She ducked underneath the window when she saw Lucent stare right at her, his eyes widening a little bit. She heard Nega's voice: "Something wrong, Luciebear?"

Crap. She was toast!

"Oh, n-nothing. Actually, I'm a little hungry. I'll have Missingno lead me to the kitchen."

"Why do that when he could just bring us food? I don't mind if you eat up here. What were you in the mood for?"

"Oh, really, anything will do."

"I'll go get him." There was a pause as Negatrine got out of bed and hovered to the door.

Gastrodon felt a tap on her head, and she looked up with a start to see Lucent holding out a key to her. He whispered, "Take this and go!" He disappeared as soon as she had grabbed it in her mouth, and she started down the castle wall, struggling to think of the significance of this key. Wait! 'M said something about a key... When she reached solid ground, she slipped the key into her belly-drawer and went off to find where her trainer was being held.

* * *

Soft weeping echoed through the spiral staircase of the prison tower. In the cell beside the one where Lucent had stayed was a mad scientist table, upon which Nitrine was securely restrained and crying softly. In Lucent's cell was Cynthia, her four limbs chained to those heavy iron balls to limit her movement; she was standing near the energy door, trying to comfort him. "Nitri, don't cry. We'll be okay. Shirona will probably show up soon and set us free, somehow."

Still, he continued to shed tears. "My Lucent… It can't be true. He would never side with Negatrine… would he? Did he finally crack after all these years of separation?"

"Hey, Nitri. Lucent probably doesn't know you're here. Whether he went with Nega willingly or not, I'm sure he'll choose you when he finds out you're so close to him." It really pained her to hear him so despaired, and his sorrow made her wonder how Gastrodon was doing—if she was still alive. The thought that she might have lost one of her closest companions depressed her, and she wandered to a corner of her cell where a mattress lay. After this all-day adventure, she was exhausted, and though the hard, smelly bed was uncomfortable, it was better than nothing.

Nitrine sniffled. "Yeah… you're right. He would. I hope Nega's not treating him badly."

"Since he's the queen now, I'm sure he's fine." Focusing on the sound of her own breathing, she slipped away into slumber.

"BOOGA BOOGA BOOGA!"

The loud voice nearly gave Cynthia a heart attack, but she calmed down when she saw it was only Shirona, seated on the edge of the hard mattress, laughing heartily. "There you are! I knew you'd come. Where have you been, anyway?"

"Plotspace, of course. I went back to the Distortion World to check on the dragons, but the Nega-clones still have them going at it. 'M is helping fight them off, too, while trying to talk sense into Giratina, but I got out of there when Gira spotted me."

"Oh, he still hates you?"

"Yep. Me and my plotholes." She rubbed Cynthia's shoulder. "Tired, huh?"

"Like, you have no idea. I know we don't have time right now, but I'd kill for a nap."

"I know, love. I would, too."

Nitrine wriggled futilely on his table. "Shirona! Let us out!"

Other prisoners, their voices unfamiliar, caught on to what was going down. "Who's there?" "Someone can let us out?" "Don't leave us here, we want freedom, too!"

It took some strength, but Shirona unchained the iron balls from her twin's limbs and plotholed her out of her cell onto the stairs. She then plotholed into Nitrine's cell and set him free, as well. He asked the ladies, "So, what's the plan?"

Cynthia cocked her head. "What do you mean, what's the plan? I thought the plan was to release all the prisoners." The detainees shouted in approval at this plan.

Nitrine shook his head. "That's only after they freed Cerberus. I don't want to go throwing a wrench into their plan by doing something too early."

"Right, right." Raising her voice, she shouted, "Don't worry, everyone. We'll come back to free you soon!" To her friends, she suggested, "First, we have to rescue Gastrodon. She might be getting eaten by that nasty Cerberus!"

"Let's roll." Shirona led the way into a plothole to the outside, leaving the other prisoners to make a huge commotion over how they were leaving them. They ended up outside the pool that led down to the entrance so they could gauge their whereabouts, and she plotholed them quickly over to Cerberus's little territory at the front courtyard. The beast laid eyes on them and lunged, only to yelp and stumble back after their collars passed the invisible fence. Nitrine flew quickly around the boundary and even overhead to survey the area, but the pink Pokemon was nowhere in sight. Cynthia bit her lip apprehensively.

"Cerberus, did you eat that ice cube they gave you?" Nitrine asked the beast forcefully. The blue and red twins only barked at him in frustration.

The yellow head, to their surprised, actually spoke. "Quiet, you two!" His siblings stopped barking, though they kept their deadly gaze on the trio. The third head said, "We licked at it some, but then the little squirmy thing inside it broke loose and ran off."

"She's alive!" Cynthia breathed a sigh of relief. "But, where is she?" The yellow dog turned and faced off to the right, leaned its ball-shaped body forward, folded his ears back and pointed with his nose. They thanked him and headed across the courtyard in that direction.

"Look, I see her! There!"

"Gastrodon!"

The sea slug looked around and bounded over to her allies, hopping up into her trainer's arms and licking her face like an excited puppy. She cried, "I'm so glad you're alive and safe~!"

"And us you."

"Looklooklook!" Gastrodon wiggled to be put down, and once on the ground, she reared up and revealed the key in her belly-drawer. The eyes of her three companions bugged.

Shirona eagerly wanted to know, "Whoa, how did you get that? Where was it?"

"I climbed up that wall over there, see, up to that window. It's Negatrine's bedroom, and Lucent gave it to me while he was distracted."

"Lucie!" Nitrine looked up at the window and started to fly straight up to it before anyone could protest. He soared up into a plothole which pointed downwards and ended up faceplanting on the pavement next to his friends.

Shirona admonished, "You can't just fly up there and let everyone know you got out of jail. Look, since Gastrodon has this key—presumably the key for the voltage lock—we need to find out where Wrenn's resistance is."

Gastrodon asked, "Why don't we just undo the voltage lock on Cerberus's fence ourselves?"

The brown-eyed nightmaren rubbed at his wounded face and replied, "There's a reason why he's even behind that thing. Do you want to get eaten alive? And then we have to deal with freeing the prisoners, and getting reinforcements to help them fight."

From within the castle, a large cluster of Nega-clones took flight off into the distance. Cynthia wondered, "Where could they be going?"

"No clue," Shirona asked, "but that's a lot of Negas. We should get going so the resistance group can initiate their attack."

They snuck out of the castle grounds via plothole and traveled across the land, searching far and wide. They had just stumbled upon a small cliff with a waterfall just beyond Gillwing's valley when they noticed a conspicuous sight: a Mothpill fluttered out from behind the waterfall. Nitrine prepared to kill it as it approached, but then it took off the Mothpill mask to reveal that he was really Grace! "You guys! I didn't expect you to be here."

They all gathered round him immediately. "We got captured in the Distortion World—stuck in prison—Where's the resistance?—We have the voltage key!"

Grace held up his hands. "Slow down, slow down! Everyone is in a little cave behind that waterfall. Come quickly, before one of the patrolling third-levels sees us." He ushered them into the opening in the rock behind the flow of water.

* * *

Negatrine re-affixed his evil overlord cape of awesome on his shoulders just as a knock came to the bedroom door, and he opened it. Missingno held a tray of food with two mugs of steaming coffee and tea. "Master Negatrine, a large quantity of the clones have gone off to inspect the distant portal."

"Oh? I better go investigate." Picking up the mug of tea, he beckoned the glitchmon into the room as Lucent emerged from his fancy walk-in closet wearing a red-plaid shirt. "Keep my queen company while I'm gone, alright?" He gave Lucent a swat on the rear before hurrying out of the room.

It was some time before he found the many clones, his face expressing that he was beyond pleased. Stomping along the ground was Giratina, his body bound with chains and marred by boner-blast wounds and lashes from the clones' whips if he moved too slowly. The pain from their weapons was great; he didn't even struggle anymore. 30 of them attacked him at once, the same as his siblings, and he stood no match. He had lost. Inwardly he burned with fury and shame, but he could do no more than head back towards his old prison.

The same could not be said for the other two. Each also had 30 Nega-clones on it, and they refused to take even a single step without a fight. Palkia moaned as their whips laid upon his body repeatedly, desperately trying to attack and get away. The Nega-clones only yanked his chains, pulling him along whilst preventing him from making many more motions besides walking. Dialga was a little better off; the hard, steely surface of his body was not easily damaged by the whips, though the sting of being lashed was still annoying and coercive. Each had two clones on their heads, preventing them from opening their mouths.

"Excellent work, you guys!" Negatrine called, clapping slowly. Now that he had the masters of time and space in his grasp, he could not only guarantee that nobody could change the timeline to dethrone him, but also invade the human world virtually unopposed.

Everything was falling into place beautifully.


	12. Chapter 12

The cave behind the waterfall, as it turned out, was Hallucinatouch's old home. It was very simple, with a little fridge, electric stove, tiny bed, and a bureau that held the gastromaren's personal belongings. It was quite crowded in the cave because it was full of rebels: aside from Grace, they met the double-sided Deca, the Italian twins Ilaria and Xie, dogmaren Ceruno, snakemaren Ra, his tiger girlfraaan Silvia, and Wrenn.

"WRENN MAH BABYYY! 8D" Nitrine glomped him repeatedly, hugging all the breath out of him. Wrenn loved every moment of it, because it had been so long since their last encounter.

"Mom, I thought you were dead! QAQ"

"No, no, I'm okay, we're okay. We were stuck in prison for a little while, but then Shirona set us free."

"Is that what happened?" Deca inquired. Which side was speaking? Who gives a shit, they're the same person.

Cynthia nodded quickly, explaining the whole deal with the Coronet dragons and their imprisonment. Deca nodded gravely. "It's worse than we thought. If that's the case, then it seems they're already putting their backup plan into motion."

"Backup plan?" Shirona echoed.

"After doing a bit of snooping, I discovered that the portal directly to the waking world shut for good. As a result, Negatrine's new plan is to use Giratina to capture the two other dragons, beasts of space and time. He wanted to trap them to keep them from standing in his way of conquering the waking world."

Nitrine cocked his head over Wrenn's shoulder, still holding him in an embrace. "Use Giratina? But Giratina would never—"

Deca answered quickly, "He took the beast captive a long, long time ago because it tried to close the other portal."

Cynthia murmured, "The other portal to the crackverse..."

Shirona gasped and injected, "Before we forget, we know all about your guys's plan, of course, and Gastrodon got her hands on the voltage-lock key!" At her words, Gastrodon removed the key from her belly-drawer. Everyone's eyes went wide, and Deca snatched the key from her and handed it off to Ceruno.

"How in the world did you get this?"

"I climbed the outside of one of the walls and found Nega's bedroom, and Lucent was in there, and he gave it to me!"

Ceruno cheered, "Excellent! Do you all have your reinforcements ready?"

Cynthia answered, "Besides 'M, no. We need to get her to come and bring Bluey. Shirona, could—"

"I'll do it!" Gastrodon chirped, and before anyone could protest, she crawled out of the hole. Her trainer went after her, but by the time she reached the edge of the pond, Gastrodon had disappeared. She headed back into the cave, wondering how she moved about so quickly... hopefully that slug didn't get snatched away by some 'maren.

When Wrenn finally released Nitrine, he said, "In light of the news of the dragon plan, we've decided that we need to thwart it. While Cerberus is terrorizing the castle, someone needs to release all the prisoners, and someone _else_ needs to deal with the dragons. Ilaria, Deca, Ra and I have already decided that we're going to storm the prison tower. Ceruno is going to be commanding Cerberus, obviously, and Xie and Silvia are going to be backing him up. "

Ra chimed in, "Don't forget to mention the red-ideya holder he keeps."

"Ah, right. He keeps a human in his castle, too. There's a tower with bars over the window. I have the feeling that when the going gets rough, Negatrine is going to try and dualize in order to defeat us with the human's red ideya. Mom, I think you would be best suited to taking that human and… hiding him. Make sure Negatrine can't get to him."

Nitrine gave a thumbs-up. "Got it."

Shirona offered, "I could try to free the dragons. If they get unruly, I could plothole myself out of danger."

Grace spoke up. "In that case, you should probably plothole your way into the throne room, first. Jackle could help you."

"Jackle! Jackle's in there?! Cynthia, why didn't you tell me! I haven't seen him in so long! Is he doing all right?"

"He's a bit cut-up about being Nega's personal servant, but he seems to be doing fine," answered Grace. "Do you need an escort to the throne room?"

"I think I can find it. If I get someone on my ass, they can have fun escorting themselves out of the Swiss Alps."

Cynthia asked, "What could I do to help? I don't really have any special powers, and my Pokemon have all disappeared."

Grace suggested, "Perhaps you're best off staying with your doppelganger. You're vitally needed to close the hole to the crackverse, so we can't afford to let anything happen to you." The two blond champions nodded to each other.

Wrenn announced, "Since Negatrine already has the dragons in his keep, we have no time to lose. Let's move out, everyone!" With that, the little group stormed out of the waterfall cave.

* * *

Cerberus lifted his heads when he felt a presence nearby, and he looked in all directions around where he lay. The blue head gave a yip of excitement upon noticing Ceruno entering the boundary of the electric fence, sticking low to the ground to avoid being seen. He put a finger over his nose in a signal to be quiet but welcomed the three large snouts coming in to nuzzle him all over. "It's good to see you, too, Cerberus." The gesture was certainly not one he had ever seen from the normally ill-tempered hellhound, whom he had always treated solely in a business-like manner.

"We thought you had been captured, Boss," Yellow whimpered. "Or, that you'd abandoned us."

"No way. I just needed to make some new friends." The first-level rubbed their noses fondly before he went back to hunting around the edges of the fence. Near the wall of one of the castle towers closest to the hellhound's roaming area was the special box—the voltage lock. He turned to grin at his canine companion, holding up the coveted key. "Ready to start some shit?"

Their mouths stretched deviously as they watched him turn the key and lower the voltage to zero. The yellow head asked, "How should we proceed, Boss?"

"At will!" Almost immediately, all the rancor they felt towards their dictator fueled the size of their elemental manes, and the red and blue twins charged forth, attacking the main castle entrance with a flaming blizzard storm tackle. Dozens of Nega-clones emerged from the castle to see what was going on. A wave of panic passed over them as they frenzied to control the hellhound, rushing for the chains; Ceruno's sonic barks knocked them off their balance in mid-air, and Red and Blue each snapped up a clone to maim. Two of the remaining clones fired boner blasts, only to have the twins use their current chewtoys as shields. They fell to the ground in bloody, blackened, skeletal crisps as Silvia and Xie tackled more clones, keeping them from overwhelming Ceruno.

The impact of their tackle shook the entire property, from the prison tower to Cyril's room, from the throne room to the holding cages in the back for the now secure dragons. Negatrine ordered, "Hurry and see what it is, you clones. I'm getting sick of all these wrenches being put into my plan."

The ninety clones obeyed, rushing to the front of the castle to see the hellhound madly tearing down the wall with their bodies, and they immediately took action to stop him. Negatrine was not worried about Cerberus or Ceruno at all; rather, the first thing he did was check his cape pocket—fuck. Where could it have gone? How could that human mutt have gotten his hands on the key? He gave his head one shake. There was no time to puzzle over this mystery. He warped back into his castle and called for some of the second-levels he had currently employed. At once, Clawz, Bomamba, and Gillwing rushed into the assembly hall for orders.

Negatrine cut right to the chase: "We're being attacked. Gather your soldiers and bring them here to help detain Cerberus; more than likely, there will be more rebels to come our way. Anyone you see that isn't obviously with us is against us, and I want you to order your soldiers to attack them."

"Yes, sir!" they said in unison, rushing out to execute their orders.

Negatrine shuddered, knowing there were still a few loose ends. He hurried back to his throne room to find it empty aside from Hesper. "Where is Jackle?"

"He disappeared down a hole, sir!"

Fucking. Dammit.

* * *

Lucent nearly fell over from the powerful tremor that shook the castle; Missingno extended two appendages from his body and used them to keep his queen upright. The latter, able to catch a glimpse out the open window, saw the cause of the tremors and suppressed a smile. Things were going according to plan, but now he needed to get himself out of danger. Missingno assured him, "Fear not, Your Highness. I will protect you."

"Missingno? Can you still clone things or people?" Lucent stumbled again as Cerberus tackled the castle wall once more, though the glitchmon's hold on him was secure.

"Yes, I can."

"Good. I was thinking that if I could find my gloves, we could clone them and hand them out to the Nega-clone army so they can have an easier time…"

Missingno hesitated a moment, answering softly, "Actually, I am unsure if I would be allowed to give those to you. Master Negatrine highly values your bladed gloves."

Of course, he would. It was harder for Lucent to fight off others without his gloves, hence why they had been robbed of them nearly a decade earlier. Thinking quickly, he shifted stood taller to take on a more authoritative stance and gave the glitchmon a glare. "Well, he left me in charge of you, didn't he? And I'm the queen, aren't I? That means you're subject to my orders. Where are my gloves? Like I said, you can clone them to help the army."

The floating pixel block nodded his upper appendage hurriedly and, releasing his hold on the blue-eyed 'maren, floated into the closet. Reaching down, he pushed aside a bunch of books—Lucent could have sworn they may have been his diaries or some of his favorite reads—and unlocked an ornate wooden box, where the old fingerknives lay. Lucent's hand burned hot; he focused all his potential into his fingertips and, with a crack of electricity, sent a strong jolt through Missingno. By the time the glitchmon had fallen to a pile of pixels on the floor, the skinny blonde nightmaren had already affixed his gloves back on their rightful hands and darted out of the window to find a place to hide.

* * *

Shirona and Cynthia plothole-hopped throughout the castle, hiding in the safety of plotspace to avoid being seen, peeking out the tiniest holes to gauge their location as they probed even deeper into the grand building. At last, they had reached their destination; they looked out of their peeping plothole from one of the walls and caught sight of that unmistakable orange cloak. The plotspace queen only ordered her companion, "Hold tight!" She shut the tiny plothole, opened a larger one and leapt out of it, straight down from the high ceiling of the throne room and onto Jackle's unsuspecting head. Another one opened up underneath him, and he collapsed into it from the impact of the two women falling down on him.

"Ugh, my head!" he cried, rubbing his aching horns as Shirona squeezed him around his invisible torso. He blinked down at her with disbelief before grabbing Cynthia—she clung to his mantle to avoid being sucked out of plotspace—and pulled her in to hug both his ladies. "Shirona, I can't believe you came for me. And Cynthia, I thought you were dead."

"Why have you been staying here, Jackle? It's been so long. You just disappeared one day without even saying goodbye." Tears pricked at Shirona's eyes as she recalled.

"Negatrine threatened harm to you if I didn't surrender. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I lost you, even if I couldn't be with you all these years."

"Cynthia appeared as a cookie I baked, and we went on this crazy adventure to try and find out what happened to her. Turns out that everything is her fault because she decided to use Emiliobrand bullshit."

"At least I'm trying to fix everything," Cynthia jumped in. "Anyway, we have dragons to free."

"Right, of course. Jackle, you know about Nega's plan to capture the Sinnoh dragons, right?"

"Yeah, I know."

"Well, he has them, so we were employed by Wrenn's resistance group to free them. Do you know where he keeps them?"  
Jackle nodded. "I've seen the place a few times when I went out to wait on him. I'll take you there." He opened a nearby rip in plotspace and stuck his head out.

The entire surrounding area was dark and filled with a strange energy. Immediately they heard the rumbling of the three dragons, fearsome sounds that would have been amplified had their mouths not been chained shut, cutting off their ability to roar. Dialga and Palkia stomped and yanked wildly, but their restraints were too powerful for them to break, and they only succeeded in chafing their legs, arms, necks, and faces. Giratina acted much calmer, but the fervor of his thrashing escalated when his brothers' did. They were still arguing.

The plotholing trio appeared near the ceiling, which was not far above the heads of the beasts. Jackle turned to the ladies, asking, "How should we let them know we mean no harm?"

Cynthia said, "If you can float us down carefully, I'll try to talk to them." Gripping his orange cloak in her hands, the Sinnoh Champion and the nightmaren gently hovered over the dragons' heads as Shirona stayed inside the plothole to avoid weighing her roommate down. Cynthia called, "Giratina, Dialga, Palkia! Please calm down!" Three pairs of glowing red eyes fixated on the blonde woman, though the ghastly dragon in particular began to writhe wildly when he registered her company. Cynthia attempted to soothe him, "Please. If you keep fighting like that, we can't set you free. You have to relax first."

Jackle scoffed when Giratina turned his face away suddenly to scowl at the wall of his prison. "Are you seriously still upset about our plotholing? We can't unchain you without it, so now's a good time to just drop this vendetta you have!"

"Easy, Jackle," Cynthia muttered. "Listen, you three, the reason you are all here right now is because of the Crackverse portal. If I remember from what I heard earlier, Giratina, you were captured before you could close it. So it isn't your fault. It's Nega's." She said to her nightmaren friend, "Let's try and free them."

Jackle floated down near Dialga's metal feet, Shirona opening up a plothole nearby, and all three inspected the chains. They were enormous and weighty—Cynthia could fit her face into the hole of one link. She tried to shove it underneath Dialga's foot, but they were wrapped taut, and it was no use. The orange nightmaren contemplated it in his hands. "I think these might be dream-chains. Very strong; only the power of a high-level nightmaren can break them." Having said that, he removed one of the razor-edged cards and hacked away at the chain link, severing the chain after only two or three strikes. He grunted, "We might have along way to go."

Shirona appeared on top of Dialga, inspecting the huge chains closely. "We just need to find the links that absolutely need to be broken in order to free them. I think the ones hooked near the floor might be our best bet first, so they can move around a little more." Jackle set to work straight away.

* * *

"This is bad. This is really bad."

It was no problem for Wrenn and his group to sweep away the starving third-level fishymarens. Gulpo posed a bit more of a problem, but in the end, he was felled easily, as well. They were even able to dig underneath the heavy iron door to get to the great spiral staircase to the prisoners' cells. The major problem was the state of the prisoners themselves: they were weakened from illness, hunger, and depression; some were affected so severely that they could not stand on their own.

None were fit enough to help with the resistance.

"What do we do now, Wrenn?" asked Ilaria worriedly.

The blind nightmaren shook his head. This was a variable that neither he nor anyone else in his tiny rebel group could have considered. "We have to get back out there and help Xie, Silvia, and Ceruno! There are hundreds of third-levels still in the army on top of the Nega-clones."

One wall of the prison tower began to crumble beneath the quartet as Cerberus slammed his body into the great building. With his last dying breaths, Gulpo had alerted Negatrine to the break-in at the prison. "Tear it down!" Negatrine shouted, and the Nega-clones immediately began to taunt the hellhound into attacking the tower. The effect would be two-fold: not only would the tackles collapse the tower, but it distracted Cerberus from devouring the third-level soldiers of Bomamba, Clawz, and Gillwing, making the going ever tougher for Ceruno and his two companions. "Kill 'em all, the useless wastes of flesh!" Ra used his super transformy snake body to hold open the breaking wall long enough for his partners to go through, although the tower toppled on top of him in a great mountain of stone and debris.

Things were just not going Wrenn's way today.

* * *

Here it was! Bars over the window. Nitrine grabbed them and pulled them off relatively easily thanks to his strength, and he floated inside. Man, the red-ideya holder had it going on: it was like his own full little apartment on the inside. He even had a treadmill, and a huge flatscreen and more video games than Nitrine had ever seen at Shirona's house. It made the brown-eyed 'maren growl a bit; this human was being treated better than his Lucent had been for the past eight years?

He sniffed the air—the stench of fear was strong, enough so that he could easily follow the trail down the stairs to a closet. He opened the door cautiouslyand leapt out of the way as a blonde man with stubble swung a Louisville slugger at him, narrowly avoiding stepping on a gray cat that streaked past him. Nitrine grabbed the bat from the man and twisted it out of his hands, tossing it aside. "Relax. I'm not a bad guy."

The man stood tensely as he studied Nitrine's face. "Y-You… You look a lot like a friend of mine."

"Negatrine?" The man nodded, his eyes widening as the 'maren guessed his identity. "Long story short, he and I are doppelgangers. I'm the nicer one."

Cyril cocked his head in puzzlement. "Nicer one. How can I trust you? Negatrine and I are friends, but I barely know you."

"Nega doesn't like humans. I'm guessing you've been living in this place awhile." Nitrine paused and cooed as the gray-tiger cat rubbed itself up against his foot. He murmured, "Long time no see, Skype."

"That's right. He asked me to help him overthrow Wizeman…"

"And once you did that, he decided to just shove you in a drawer until you were needed again. You are a special kind of person in the dream world, but Nega used you like a tool." The stubbly man blinked slowly in bewilderment as it all started to make sense. No wonder Negatrine's visits became rarer and rarer.

Nitrine went on, "Well, I want to help you get out of here. You have family, don't you? I bet they miss you."

Cyril nodded, answering, "Yeah, I have a really good friend I haven't seen in awhile. My Pokemon, too."

"You have Pokemon? Neato! Maybe you could help us in taking down Neg—"

The man suddenly pointed over Nitrine's shoulder and shouted, "Behind you!" Nitrine half-turned and threw himself down onto the floor to avoid the slugger he had tossed aside, this time wielded by Negatrine.

Bat raised, he glowered down at Nitrine as though he were about to kill an insect. "Let me guess, Lame-trine, was it Shirona who let you out? Hmph. I'm not going to let you ruin my plans. I'll see you in Hell~!" Nitrine rolled away from the second strike before getting up and darting across the room to avoid the dictator, having only his original goal in mind: he needed to get that red-ideya holder out of this tower and keep him safe. Negatrine gave chase immediately, swinging his bat wildly, smashing the coffee table in half and knocking over the flatscreen television. Cyril smartly kept out of the line of fire but emerged from the closet to watch the scene unfold.

At one point, the brown-eyed nightmaren managed to grab hold of the end of the weapon to repeat his wrestling stunt with his clone; unfortunately, his grip was weak and lost completely with one swift badass boot to the stomach. Back against the floor, he quickly brought his arms up to protect his head from a hard blow, and he managed to kick Negatrine's hands hard enough to make him drop the bat and allow Nitrine to squirm away. Cyril's monochromatic black-and-grey clothes caught his eye, and he lunged for him suddenly, causing him to cry out and fall over. The human found himself staring into the mouth of Nitrine's cannon by the time Negatrine had picked up the slugger.

"L-Lame-trine!"

Panting gently, the paunchy 'maren snarled, "Don't move, or your special little tool is gonna get baked." Negatrine's grip on his weapon seemed to slacken, and Nitrine ordered, "Drop it and back away slowly."

Cyril swallowed and glanced around his surroundings, heart racing, but there was no place to run to except the closet. Considering a boner blast could burn through most materials, even that wouldn't keep him safe. He hissed softly, "I thought you were going to help—" Nitrine hushed him.

Negatrine noticed, and his pupils thinned to slits, his teeth baring in his nightmarish grin that even made his doppelganger shift uneasily. "Oh, come now, Brown-eyes." The words rolled condescendingly off his tongue. "Why drag Cyril into this, he's just an innocent—"

His grip tightened.

"Little—"

He began to raise the bat, and Nitrine's body tensed even as he pressed the metal of his cannon against Cyril's lanky frame.

"Human!" A fake-out swing caused Nitrine to slam his head into the slugger in his effort to avoid being hit. Red blood stained his platinum-blond hair near his right temple. Nega stuck the tip of his badass boot underneath the other's head to ensure he was out cold before setting down the weapon and extending his hand towards the man. "Cyril, are you okay? Take my hand and dualize with me; he's one of the members of the resistance trying to overthrow me. I need your help to fight them."

Cyril was about to take the nightmaren's hand but stopped himself, brushing off his own clothes as he got to his feet on his own. Staring the dream creature straight, he declared, "No. I won't."

Negatrine's eye twitched involuntarily. "What did you just say?"

"You heard me. I don't want you to use my 'special dream ability' or whatever I've got anymore. You can find someone else to fill that role." Crossing his arms, he shot his companion a glare before turning away.

The nightmaren seized his arm roughly. "I thought we were friends."

"Friends don't use others just to get what they want! And they don't hurt each other, either."

"You think this hurts?" Negatrine squeezed harder before heading up the stairs, forcing Cyril to stumble after him with painful moans. The latter tried bracing his feet and resisting when he realized he was being dragged towards the wide-open window of his bedroom, but his strength was nothing compared to that of an angry nightmare creature. Suddenly he found himself hanging by the wrists high above the palace grounds, nothing but empty air between him and a fall to his death. Cyril screamed.

"Using you only makes my job easier," Negatrine growled. "I can continue without you, if you'd like. Just say that N-word again, Cyril, and I'll be more than happy to let you go on your way."


	13. Chapter 13

The dizzying sight of the ground below made Cyril lose his voice, and he shut his eyes in a vain attempt to make the grave reality of his situation go away. Negatrine gave the human's arms a shake. "Should I take your silence as a no, Cy?" A pink splotch appeared in his peripheral vision, and when he turned his head to look, the blond man's wrists were snatched from his hands. "What the—!"

Coming upon his kingdom from the the same direction were a flock of strange-looking Pokemon, two or three score of them. They came in all sizes, from ten feet to over eighty feet tall, but each only had one or two colors to it, and none looked very natural. A few of them were just simple pixel blocks, not unlike his bodyguard. Shit, it was a storm of glitch Pokemon! Things were just getting worse and worse for the dictator, but as he decided on what to do, he hesitated. What he needed was to dualize with his red-ideya holder—but Cyril had been stolen right out from under him, and Negatrine did not want to attack his savior, lest he injure his tool in the process.

Missingno. He needed to get to Missingno and get him to produce more Nega-clones for the army. He floated up a few inches but turned around and flew downstairs to look at his brown-eyed doppelganger, who still lay unconscious on the floor. The Louisville slugger lay beside him. Negatrine's hands tensed; it would be so easy to finish him off with a few final swings of that bat, one less enemy to stand in his way…

'M flapped her thin wings alongside Bluey the monster, surveying the battle area. Bluey asked, "Which ones do I attack? That dog thing looks pretty dangerous."

"Cerberus is on our side. Fight the little nightmares and the Nega-clones, like this one." She shot a jet of water from her beak at a nearby clone, confusing him long enough to allow Xie to take him down. "Don't worry about anyone else, lest you hit one of our allies. I'm going to look for Missingno." She veered away, and Bluey landed on the ground within the courtyard to join the war, burning some third-levels to a crisp with a Fire Blast attack.

Cyril opened his eyes to find a pair of slimy pink arms hugging him around his midsection. "Garchomp? B-But..."

"Don't worry, I gotcha!" said Gastrodon, except the power of Garchomp's mask had caused her body to morph into the jet-dragon, with minor body differences. She was mostly blue with a pink underside, with shorter legs and tail, and four arms each ending in a mighty hooked claw. She blinked at the man from behind her mask and said, "Hey, you look sorta familiar."

"I… What _are _you?"

"The slug who just saved your life. Who are you? Or, what do you have to do with Negatrine?"

Cyril spat at that name. "I thought he was my friend, but he was just using me." He shouted in alarm as Gastrochomp dove down once they had cleared the castle grounds, darting under the waterfall and into the tiny cave where Wrenn's resistance had held their base. Safe for now, she removed the Garchomp mask and, with a scream and a flash of white light, reverted back to her true form.

"So, you must be on our side!" she chirruped, putting the mask on her back. "But, how could you ever think that Negatrine was your friend? Look what he's done to Nightmare!"

Cyril shrugged. "He would always bother me back home. I fought back most of the time, but he didn't seem to care. I guess I'm not as strong as Shirono, but him being able to plothole helps…"

"Wait wait wait, slow down. Shiro_no_? Plotholes?" Gastrodon drew close to him and settled down on the ground, her eyes studying his face closely. "Just where are you from? How did you get here?"

Cyril sat down, too, on the stony floor. "My name is Cyril. I'm from a completely different world, where I'm the Champion of the Sinnoh region. I have a team with a Gastrodon, like you, and a Garchomp—"

"And Roserade and Lucario and Spiritomb and Togekiss and Glaceon, and Shirono is the local urban legend who has a crush on you. Am I right? We have all of those, too, except my owner Cynthia is the Champion and her plotholing urban legend friend is named Shirona, and she lives with a Nightmaren named Jackle!"

"Really?" The man blinked, his lips grasping for words to speak, but he could not say anything.

"Which means… you must be from the Crackverse!" Gastrodon inhaled a sharp breath. "You and Nega both! Do you know how he managed to become the king of Nightmare?"

"It's quite a long story. You see, one day a nearby convenience store collapsed in on itself right as Nega and I were going to it—he was bored that day and decided to spend the day bothering me. Well, I guess we ended up in your world, and we went around exploring. We actually ended up staying a few days because Negatrine seemed to enjoy exploring with me and I even taught him how to catch a Pokemon by capturing a Missingno.

"Anyway, one day he introduced me to the concept of dualizing, and I agreed to try it, since I still don't know much about nightmarens, and we had fun flying around. Then, with me in his body, he warped us to the Night Dimension to teach me more about his kind. Weird things started happening, apparently—he could feel it, by extension so could I, other 'marens could feel it. Then… we ran into Wizeman, the creator of Nightmare. He tried to capture me, us, but Nega encouraged me to help him attack Wizeman in order for us to save ourselves. Then, Wizeman died and disappeared into the black abyss.

"But Negatrine became panicked, and he struggled to find a portal back to our world, or something, but I tried to remind him that it was in the real world and not in the Night Dimension. Then, he said that something weird was happening: he was still alive, and Nightmare was still intact. That wasn't supposed to happen since Wizeman died; everything was supposed to be destroyed. Missingno started acting all weird, too, and then there were a hundred Negas. One thing led to another, and we dualized again and stormed this big old castle owned by one of the higher-up 'marens, and some of the clones captured some other higher-ups, big monsters like Clawz the cat thing.

"Eventually, Negatrine used his clones' power to force most of the monster higher-ups to submit, and the ones who didn't, he killed off. Since he commanded them, he also commanded their armies of mini-nightmarens. A war broke out, and our allies blocked off the entrance to the light side of the Night Dimension, Nightopia, causing a great famine. Our forces could enter as they pleased, but anyone who was against us starved.

"Negatrine promised me that I would be able to rule beside him, but he put me in that tower to 'keep me safe' from other nightmarens who would rather I be dead. They weren't too keen on the idea that a human helped conquer them. He promised to take me around, and do a lot of things, but he never came through. I spent eight long years locked away, keeping myself busy with television, exercising, writing journals, cooking, writing letters to my loved ones that were never answered."

Gastrodon shook her head when he finally finished his tale. "That's terrible. So, you're the one who captured Missingno."

"Yes, but he follows Nega's orders because Nega's the king. I'm just some tool who helped him ruin a lot of lives." Cyril sighed, frowning dejectedly at the ground.

The pink slug rubbed her head against him comfortingly, and he patted her head. She said, "Hey, do you want to get back to your real home?"

"Yes! Definitely! Is that what you're doing? Helping with whatever's going on outside?"

"That's right. Stay here; I'll be riiiight back!" Gastrodon took the mask of her sister in her teeth and slithered out of the waterfall cave.

* * *

Back at the castle, Negatrine leapt from the window of Cyril's tower and made a beeline for his bedroom window, pushing himself faster and faster, until a huge, pixelated bird rammed him from below with a mighty cry. The air knocked out of him, he gasped, thrusting out his cannon and firing a smoke bomb. It engulfed 'M in a black cloud, and she flew straight up out of it, glowing with a harsh light. Nega withdrew his cannon and tried to make his getaway, aiming for his bedroom window, but a flash of white emerged; he found himself on the ground, having been caught in a Sky Attack.

"Missingno!" screeched 'M before the smaller glitchmon shot a Water Gun at her. "Why do you attack me!"

"Because I caught you attacking my master!" Missingno hissed, sounding like a computer playing music through several feet of water. Behind him, Negatrine climbed to his feet with a groan, his legs shaking unsteadily.

"Missingno, what you're doing is wrong! You are helping a dictator bring an entire world to ruin. You need to come home."

Negatrine spat, brushing the dirt off his clothes. "Don't listen to it, Missingno. Besides, I need your help."

Missingno turned his head to look at his master, and 'M pleaded, "Don't, brother!"

She might as well not have said anything, for the dictator simply continued, "I need you to make more clones of me in order for me to replenish my dying army. I don't want the kingdom to fall to the likes of that _thing _and its buddies."

"This _thing _is your sister, Missingno, and my buddies are your family, too. Help us end the chaos in the real world, please! Mountains are collapsing in on themselves—"

"Missingno, as my bodyguard, you received much higher-class treatment than any of my other servants. The drinks, the games, the massages; you wouldn't want to just abandon all that to join the losing side, would you?"

"The world is falling apart because that creature will not close rifts that need to be shut!"

"Attack it, Missingno. I'm sick of hearing its pathetic whimpering."

Down below, the ten-foot glitch block stood frozen in front of his sibling, unable to make a decision even as 'M blew away a nearby third-level nightmaren with a Water Gun. "Brother, please! We're your family!" He looked over at the battle taking place, at all his cousins fighting the nightmare creatures, still stuck on a decision.

"Ugh, I don't have time for this. Missingno, clone me." Negatrine began to approach his Pokemon, arm outstretched to touch him. 'M stretched one wing across her body as Missingno finally spoke again.

"The queen has tur—"

_POUND_! The larger glitch block backhanded her brother hard, knocking him several yards off to the side right before Negatrine could reach him, effectively denying access to a new clone army. The nightmaren king snarled and prepared his cannon, but Missingno himself got up and retaliated against 'M, and the two were soon engaged in an aerial battle as 'M tried to talk some sense into her brother. Negatrine took this time to levitate up to his bedroom, giving it a quick once-over to confirm that no, Lucent was not in the room. Just as his bodyguard had tried to tell him, his queen had turned.

"Dammit, dammit, dammit!"

* * *

Bluey and his glitchmon partners charged into the fray and handled the third-levels, attacking with their specialized fighting moves. The third-levels were a definite match in power with the glitchmons, some of the smaller glitches falling to the onslaught. A giant black Meganium with glowing red eyes, as large as the castle itself, stomped on waves of third-levels as it tried to eat Chamelan. It definitely took a load off the backs of the rebels, which were only seven strong plus Cerberus now, and they could focus on taking care of the Nega-clones.

Through the skillful use of his wind abilities, Wrenn redirected a head-on boner blast from a Nega-clone into a row of incoming third-levels, turning the half-dozen into a pile of ashes in a single second. He used his saws to attack the Nega-clone, completely unaware of another one coming upon him from behind. He brutally maimed his enemy as the second, unbeknownst to him, prepared his whip; a fearsome crackling made him spin around, and he was just in time to see his father yank his claws from the clone's back, letting the electrocuted victim fall to the ground.

"Dad! You're alive!" The two 'marens threw a hug on each other as massive, Rhydon-shaped Substitute doll managed to Horn Drill another group of third-level nightmarens away from them. "Mom's alive, too."

"Where is he?" Lucent pulled away from the hug to duke it out with an incoming Nega-clone. He and his son quickly overpowered him together before putting him out of his misery.

Wrenn turned and pointed to Cyril's tower. "I sent him to break into that tower over there to guard the red-ideya holder. I'm not sure if he's still there or not; I told him to hide the human."

Lucent immediately dodged the violence on the castle grounds as he made his way to the tower, slowly floating through the window. As Nitrine had before him, he gazed around at the comfortable housing in disgust but kept his eyes open for his beloved. "Nitrine? Are you around here?" Reaching the stairs, his heart went out of him as he watched his injured mate sit up sluggishly, holding his head. He was at his side right away. "Nitri!"

The younger 'maren blinked. "Uhn… Lucent? LUCENT!" He squeezed Lucent in a bear hug and held him against the floor as he planted kiss after rapid-fire kiss all over his face. Grinning from horn to horn, Lucent sobbed and laughed at the sametime as his brown-eyed beloved smooched away his tears. "Oh bro, it's been so so so long, I'm so sorry I wasn't able to protect you, I really am, I wish I had been captured by Nega and not you! Oh, Lucent, you wouldn't believe how scared I was when Nega told us you wanted to be his queen, I thought you were serious, and Cynthia told me you might choose me, and I hoped you would, and now we're together again at last!"

"Nitri, Nitri, Nitri…" Lucent was so overcome with emotion that he couldn't say anything at all. The two rolled along the floor, necking and nuzzling for what seemed like an hour even as the earth trembled from the hard fight just outside the tower walls. Eventually Lucent broke away from the embrace and found a rag to wipe away the blood from Nitrine's right temple. "So, what are we going to do from here?"

"I want to go after Nega!" Nitrine answered with a snarl, his pupils thinning. "He needs to _pay _for all the pain he's put me through, let alone everyone else. I don't care about his clones, I don't care about the third-level army, and I don't care about the dean; I just want to find him and catch him and give him what he deserves." His statement was punctuated by the sound of his knuckles cracking.

"You know, I have a way to end this relatively easily. Painfully. Quickly."

"You do?"

"Absolutely." Nitrine seemed to understand when Lucent winked, a twinkle in his eye. "First, we will need to get all our troops to fall back."

* * *

"Almost… got it…!" Jackle said, hacking apart the umpteenth dream-chain around Giratina's body. Dialga and Palkia had shaken off their chains, though they still could not move unless the massive door had been opened for them due to the cramped quarters of the cage; and the three heroes were not going to open the door until they were all completely ready to flee.

"So what's our action plan once we free these guys?" Shirona asked, seated on Dialga's back alongside Cynthia.

"Not sure if it needs to be much more complicated than going to the Distortion World and having me jump into the Crackverse portal again," Cynthia replied. "Of course, Giratina is going to need to help us out with closing it, because I don't think me jumping in—"

Gastrodon's voice shut her up. "Cynthia? Are you in here?" The transformed Garchomp was at the tiny, barred window near the top of the cage's door.

Her owner exclaimed, "Gastrodon! You're back! Where did you go, how did you run off so fast?"

The pink creature drew back to get a "running start" before slamming at full speed into the bars, easily breaking through them and landing on the floor amid many giant dragon feet and broken chain links. She answered, "The Garchomp mask, remember? From Grace's shop. It gives me her powers, including the ability to fly and go fast!"

Shirona whistled. "That's pretty awesome. And you're just in time; we're talking about plans for closing the Crackverse."

Palkia gave a long, low rumble, and Gastrochomp said, "Palkia says that he and Dialga should head back to the real world once we get them free, so that they can fix everything timeline- and space-wise."

"Space-wise?" wondered Cynthia aloud.

Palkia: "Fix the landmasses and everything else that got damaged in the Distortion World imbalance."

Gastrodon piped up, "And also, guys, I found this blond dude named Cyril who came from the Crackverse, and he says he brought Nega with him!"

"You did? Where is he?" Jackle demanded, still working on the chains.

"He's back at the waterfall cave. I'll go get him." Gastrochomp soared out of the window and took a route around the castle battle in order to easily get to the resistance group's base. It took a little convincing to get Cyril to return with her to what was essentially part of Negatrine's turf, but once she did, she carried him in her arms back to the cage. He couldn't fit through the window with her, so Shirona plotholed him inside. "This is Cyril! Cyril, this is Shirona, and up there's Cynthia, and over here is Jackle the nightmaren!"

But the man was staring wide-eyed at the huge dragons, and he stumbled over to Palkia, gingerly reaching out and placing a hand on its giant foot. He breathed, "Ultra-powerful beings of time, space, and antimatter… You didn't tell me about… I-I mean, I had no idea Nega was keeping you locked up here."

"He's had Giratina awhile now," Cynthia told him, sliding down Dialga's tail to meet Cyril up close.

"Really? Gosh, that's awful! Giratina _especially _shouldn't be locked up in here, away from his universe. He needs to be there to control it!"

"You've… done some research into these dragons, haven't you?"

Cyril nodded excitedly. "Tons, actually."

Gastrodon removed her mask and sat down beside him. "He's the Crackverse equivalent of Cynthia! He's got his own Champion Hall and his own Shirona and everything!"

"Oh, really? owo" Shirona giggled. "I bet Crackverse-me is really weird, huh?"

Cynthia cut in, "Let's try to stay focused, shall we?" Cyril nodded and gave them all the abridged version of the tale he shared with Gastrodon up near the top of the chapter. By the time he finished, a metallic clang sounded, and one more chain link thumped to the floor of the enormous metal container.

Jackle heaved a sigh. "Finally! I think I got them all. Give a shake, Giratina." The ghostly gray reptile shook his body, and most of the chains rattled to the floor. But there was still one in particula holding Giratina down, and his two front legs were still attached together and twisted against the floor of the cage as well.

The dragon grumbled: "You missed one… (Uh, he called you a rude name)"

Jackle huffed. "Well, you big fat lizard, I don't _have _to cut you loose!"

At once, the dragons became active, stomping, roaring, banging against the sides of their dark box. It took about a minute for Cynthia to hush them before she said, "Jackle, please go on. We can't put our own plans into motion without them."

"Fine." The orange nightmaren rubbed his hands together and set to work again.  
Cynthia went on, "So, it seems that Cyril is the red-ideya holder that they mentioned back at base, the one whom Nega wanted to use when the going got rough."

"And he tried, but I refused," the man told them. "He hung me out a window by my arms, and then Gastrodon saved me."

Jackle wore a thoughtful expression. "It's possible that we could use him in our plans for the resistance, mainly as a distraction for Nega."

Dialga groaned: "Why can't we just escape and close the portal? What does it matter if I'm going to change the timeline anyway?"

"Make it easier on the guys who are fighting with their lives against your captor right now, and because some of us really want to see him get hurt really badly," Jackle explained. "My thought was that Cyril could offer himself to Nega, dualize, and then take his body places where he doesn't want to go. In the midst of battle, away from the castle entirely, wherever. It also helps because he's the head commander of all the armies; if he isn't there giving them special orders to follow with regards to, I don't know, Cerberus or something, then it's potentially leaving a load off the backs of our allies."

"Great idea, Jackle," Shirona praised. "Would you be willing to do that, Cynthiaboy?"

Cyril shrugged a little. "It _is _a great idea, but I'm afraid Negatrine might be pissed off at me. After all, he threatened to _drop me out of a window_!"

"But," Jackle said, "if he sees you're now willing to do as he says, I'm sure you'll be fine. Oh, and remember: if you ever want to separate from him, just concentrate, and don't do it while you're too high off the ground."


	14. Chapter 14

"Bomamba!" Nega called, holding out his hands.

Gillwing was trying to shove Cerberus back away from the castle, trying to prevent him from further damaging the walls. The hellhound had already ruined half the castle by himself. Ceruno was, of course, backing up his underling, attacking with sound waves and drill-dashing into Gillwing's head to tear it from the rest of him, the dragon's body falling on top of Grace. Bomamba had called upon her many fuzzy minions to overwhelm the humanoid hound while Gillwing revived himself, growing a new head. When Negatrine called the cat-witch's name, she hesitated but reluctantly threw him one of her ball-cats, which he tossed up and down as he frisked in front of Cerberus's face.

"Hello again, my fearsome, mean guard dog!" he crooned. "Does someone want to take a break from fighting for a while?" Red and Blue's eyes locked on the ball-cat that he tossed before them tauntingly, their ears pointing straight up.

The yellow head snarled, sending them mental messages: _Control yourselves! Focus!_ But as soon as Negatrine chucked the ball-cat towards the front castle grounds, near the electric fence, he gave a small, surrendering groan as the twins gave chase. Negatrine found the voltage lock with the key still stuck in it, and he turned up the voltage while Cerberus was within the boundary.

Ceruno was able to fight off the cats finally, but Gillwing slapped him into a weakened half of the castle with a swing of his spiked tail-tip, causing him to slam into a pile of cobblestones. Silvia, after chasing away a Nega-clone with his own whip, pulled him from the stony pile as Nitrine hurried over. "Guys, guys, we have to retreat, now!"

"Retreat? Why?" Silvia demanded as the terriermaren shook himself off, straightening his green mohawk.

"The hell're you talking about, retreating?" he growled. "We're doing great so far."

Nitrine replied, "Yeah, but Lucent has a plan that's guaranteed to take down Nega's armies in one fell swoop! Just listen to it for a sec…"

'M and Missingno circled each other in the air high over the castle grounds as Negatrine began to approach; they had apparently stopped battling and instead appeared to be talking. Pathetic. He reached into the pocket of his cape and removed an eight-year-old Pokeball, nestled against the voltage lock key. Missingno was going to clone him, and once he withdrew the glitchmon, there would be nothing 'M could do except break the ball.

"Hey, Nega~" Gastrochomp called as she soared nearby.

His glare fell on her as he growled, "You! You're that thing that stole my human!"

Gastrochomp giggled. "Sorry, it looked like you were throwing him out. If you want him back, you'll have to catch me~!" She jetted away, and Negatrine once again hesitated. A clone army or his red ideya… He put away the Pokeball and bolted after the pink creature.

She flew two circles around Cyril's tower, atop which the man himself stood waiting; she wished him luck before flying out of sight.

Negatrine caught sight of Cyril and immediately landed himself within a couple feet of his human. Suspicion rose in the pit of his stomach, and he grabbed Cyril by the shirtfront pulling him close. "Cy. So glad we could meet up again."

The stench of Cyril's fear intensified despite his calm exterior. "Nega. I did some thinking and—"

"With whom? That pink whatever-it-was? What did it tell you?" When the man blinked at him, Negatrine grunted, "I think it's rather suspicious that it would lead me back to you, and that you would just be standing conveniently right here for me. So here's what's going to happen: you're going to dualize with me and then just sit tight while I do some errands that I need to take care of." He glanced back at the chaos behind him. "You think you can agree to that?"

"Uh—"

"Because if not, I'm sure Cerberus isn't too full for another snack."

Cyril gulped and gave a tiny nod. "Yes, o-of course, I can agree…"

* * *

Giratina nudged the last of the chains off his legs before planting all six of his great, clawed feet on the floor. Jackle sighed. "Finally! Let's get the hell outta here."

Shirona opened a plothole in the floor, a small one, but the ghostly dragon thrust his nose against her, shoving her into the wall, giving a shrill roar. "Jeez, calm down!" she shouted back, disappearing into the wall and reappearing on Giratina's head. "So I'm guessing you don't want us to plothole, even though it's much, _much _easier than just throwing open the door and going out the long way." Giratina nodded once.

Jackle floated towards the door. "I'll go see if I can't figure out how to unlock the—"

Nope, Shirona was going to be her bitch self and open up a massive plothole underneath Giratina's feet so suddenly that by the time he realized he was getting sucked in, it was far too late to escape. He tumbled onto the ground with a small tremor of the earth not far from the cage, and soon Dialga and Palkia had appeared beside him. Once Cynthia, Shirona, and Jackle got out of the cage, he stomped up to Shirona and screamed in her face again. She merely flicked his nose, snapping, "We have a job to do; you can chew me out later." He grumbled and beat his wings to fly back towards the open rift to the Distortion World with the others.

* * *

Negatrine, dualized with Cyril, was about to continue with his plan to capture Missingno when he heard, "Master!" He looked down to see Nega-clone 97, covered in whip lashes, quickly approaching from below. He panted, "The rebel forces are retreating, sir, look!" He pointed at about seven or eight little figures amid a sea of third-level nightmarens and Nega-clone bodies, rushing to escape the property of the castle. "The storm of glitch Pokemon is retreating along with them, too."

"Excellent. Tell the generals that I want their third-level soldiers to give chase. Do the same for the other clones. Don't give up until they're dead."

"Yessir!" Cyril winced inwardly as he watched the whipped clone flee. This was exactly the kind of thing he was supposed to prevent.

Down on the ground, Ceruno pounded the voltage lock on the fence, cussing at himself, as Cerberus paced frantically along the boundary. "I'm sorry, Cerberus, but the key is gone," he lamented. "I can't get you out anymore."

The hellhound could do no more than bark and snarl when four third-levels pounced on the terriermaren. He beat them off and ended them with a single paraloop before Silvia pulled him away hurriedly. "There's nothing we can do now," she said. "We have to keep going. Cerberus is a hardy second-level; he might be able to handle Lucent's plan."

"Hopefully." Ceruno gave a single backwards glance before turning and fleeing with the tigermaren.

At that moment Negatrine heard a screech from the north, and he turned to look. He flew upwards to get a better view, now able to see his three dragons, outside their cage and on their way to freedom. The dictator almost crushed the Pokeball he was holding in fury. "No. _No_! How could this _happen_!" He scanned the vicinity and found one of his clones being attacked by a glitchmon, and he dashed straight towards the scene. He needed his clones to help wrangle his dragons.

But Cyril had decided to take the wheel; the nightmaren dictator's body veered to the left, dangerously close to Cerberus's yard. Nega swerved recklessly back right, reaching for but failing to grab onto Gillwing's horn as Cyril whizzed them past a row of third-levels. "What are you doing!" shouted Negatrine as he struggled to dash into the oversized, black-and-white Typhlosion clamped onto the leg of Nega-clone 32, but his dualized human kept resisting, pulling him in the direction the other rebels were headed. The blue-eyed dictator steered upwards and around again back towards Cerberus's area, growling, "I warned you, human. I fucking warned you." The nightmaren soared over the top of the boundary, just out of Cerberus's reach, and Cyril took control long enough to grab the evil overlord cape of awesome and yank it off. It fluttered down, brushing past Red's long ear before settling down on one of his body spikes.

The man felt himself forced out of Nega's body before the 'maren seized him, pulling Cyril up into his arms, supporting him with his legs. Cyril froze, stifling the urge to punch him lest he drop him, but without warning Negatrine grip shifted and tightened around his throat, eyes glowing with a cold desire. Knowing he could never pry those powerful hands from his neck, he yanked at Negatrine's hair, trying desperately to reach his horns; but his consciousness was rapidly fading.

Now, if you have been reading the whole story up to this point, you already know that someone badass is going to swoop in and save Cyril. Who's more badass than 'M to fire a Water Gun at Nega's head, get him to drop Cyril, and then use her awesome, morphy pixel body like a rope to grab him and swing him out of harm's way before Cerberus can get to him? I'll tell you who. It's Nitrine, noticing the commotion Cerberus was making, seeing Negatrine, and abandoning his place in the middle of the resistance group to yank on Nega's horns to make him release Cyril. Cerberus recognized Nitrine as an ally and held back when he came down to rescue the man from his fall; though brown-eyed maren wished he could stick around and pound on his doppelganger some more, he remembered his original task: keep the red-ideya holder away from Nega.

Negatrine rubbed his horns in pain and turned to see Nitrine fleeing with his victim, shouting an animalistic snarl at him. "Fuck, I don't have time for this," he grumbled under his breath, hurrying back down to find another Nega-clone. Number 32 had managed to fight off the glitch Typhlosion, so he let him know hurriedly, "My dragons are on the escape. Gather as many clones as you can and come meet me by the portal to the Distortion World."

"Yessir!" That done, the two Negas split up to fly in separate directions.

Missingno and 'M had disappeared from the scene of their earlier clash.

* * *

The portal to the Distortion World was within sight! The three dragons glided across the dreamscape, the three plus Gastrodon—who had flown up from her plan with Cyril—were all seated on Dialga's back as he and Palkia followed Giratina. Very abruptly, Palkia was flung by the tail into Dialga, knocking him down and causing his four riders to go flying. Jackle caught Cynthia in his arms in midair, while Shirona plotholed herself and Gastrodon to safety. Negatrine whipped out his whip from his asspocket (since he don't have his evil overlord cape of awesome no more) and brandished it, cracking it when Giratina landed to investigate the ruckus.

The gray reptile immediately fired a big blue ball of fire in the form of a Will-O-Wisp at his old captor, who merely absorbed most of the energy in a paraloop. "You're not going anywhere except back into my cage!" he snarled, charging forward. Giratina reared up and slashed at him with his Dragon Claws, but he halted and cracked his lash at the legendary beast's paw, making him wince and fire a Shadow Ball. Nega warped out of the way, reappearing on his back with his cannon cocked, and he fired a boner blast straight at his wing muscles; the dragon's scream of pain could be heard for miles.

Dialga was gathering energy to fire a Roar of Time attack, and as Negatrine taunted him, Cynthia shouted, "So cocky despite being all alone!"

"I'm not alone, fools! My army of clones will soon be here to—"

The ground shook beneath their feet as a monstrous mushroom-shaped cloud appeared in the distance, and everyone stopped to stare at it as he collected up in the sky overhead; even Dialga stopped charging his attack. All the color drained from Nega's face and he dashed off, leaving his whip behind. Gastrodon asked breathlessly, "Wh-What happened…?"

"Castle got bombed. This I have to see," Jackle said, opening up a plothole. "Anyone want to come with?" Cynthia and Shirona immediately jumped at the opportunity, while the dragons stomped impatiently.

"It'll just be for a second, we promise," Shirona assured them, hopping into the plothole with her doppelganger and roommate. They stuck their heads out of the plothole nearby where the blast occurred, and they needed to wait for quite a while for the smoke to clear. By then, Negatrine had arrived as well.

Nothing was left. Virtually absolute nothingness for about two miles in every direction, except for Lucent, hovering out from the exact center of the empty radius. Any trees or hills or boulders or any other natural, or even maren-built part of the Night Dimension landscape, had been wiped out. This included the belligerents of the intense battle that had been going on for hours. Lucent hardly acknowledged the three massive balls, two of which were spiked, that he passed by on his way. All of the nightmarens had disappeared—the third-levels, their generals, the Nega-clones, as well as Ceruno, Silvia, and Deca. Many of the glitch Pokemon, as well as Bluey, had been obliterated also because they were fighting the 'marens. Only a select few life forms, namely those who had been able to escape the destruction by distancing themselves. That is, those who made it to the waterfall cave.

This probably isn't how nukes work in real life but this is the TH Tverse and that was a Lucentbomb so who gives a shit.

Trembling all over, Negatrine landed in the place where his grand castle once stood, crumpling to his knees. He felt completely numb inside at the realization that it was gone, all gone. Everything he had gained, including the army that helped fight to keep all of it, had disappeared. He was alone, even though he could see others far beyond.

"Shirona, hold the plothole open for me, I'll be right back." Jackle cackled, disappearing into plotspace, leaving the two women and the dragon to wonder where he was going. They would soon find out…

Negatrine could not pick himself up off the ground until he heard a plothole open not far from where he knelt. He glanced over and hurriedly climbed to his feet; Jackle had offered a shortcut to the surviving victims of his little empire: The wincest family, Xie and Ilaria, and Cyril, along with the orange nightmaren himself. He trembled in his badass boots even as he glared at them, patting himself down, having forgotten he had abandoned his whip. He stumbled out of the lunging path of a Nitrine whose rage was fueled by a decade of abuses, and he took flight, running like a puppy with his tail between his legs right into a ten-foot wall of pixels.

"Missingno!" he cried with relief, looping round so that his glitchmon stood between him and the mob of angry victims. "P-Please, make some clones of me so we can—"

Missingno wordlessly thinned out his body into a long, thick rope and constricted his former master like a python with its prey. "Eight long years, and that's the first time I've ever heard you say 'please.'"

"Wh-What are you doing!" Nega struggled as the mob approached.

'M and two other strange glitchmons landed beside him. "He and I had a little chat."

As the group began to exact their own kind of revenge on Negatrine, Jackle looked up at the plothole he had left behind and saluted. He was going to stick around for awhile, most definitely.

"I guess that's our cue," Shirona said, and she and Cynthia clung to Giratina's head as he withdrew it from the hole next to the abyss.

Dialga and Palkia had gone off already to do their own jobs in the real world, which they didn't need to wait on Cynthia for. The three ladies rode Giratina through the rift and the Distortion World, being careful of his new injuries and hanging on tightly in the low-gravity zone until they reached the source of all the weirdisms in the universe.

Giratina: "As you go in, I'm going to create a dimensional whirlwind to help cement it shut. Got it?"

"Yep." Cynthia said with a nod, preparing to jump into the yawning Crackverse portal.

Gastrodon suddenly spoke. "You know, I just realized, we have no idea if this is going to work at all. I mean, even if the portal does shut, what if nothing turns back to normal?"

Shirona slapped her. "Don't say that, otherwise that's exactly what will happen."

"Hey, guys? Thanks for all your help." Cynthia grinned at her friends. "I couldn't have done it without you."

The other Champion grinned. "Well, we were all dying to solve this mystery."

Giratina grunted impatiently, and Cynthia made the jump. A white light glowed as the dragon blew his whirlwind, a light that grew larger and larger, engulfing and consuming everything in its wake.

* * *

The portal snapped shut behind her; the winds stopped, and suddenly she saw everything. The entire events of the last eight years replayed all around her at a high-speed rewind as she drifted through what felt like plotspace. Or, perhaps the events were static against the infinite walls of whatever dimension she was in, and it was she who was moving at high speed. Trees vomited houses, household items returned to their original size after a stint of being giant, and the laws of physics and gravity applied once again in the real world.

She found herself staring at a package of Emiliobrand laxatives in the middle of the Cheap-o Mart. Immediately she threw them back on the shelf and stormed out of the store, hopping into her car and driving away. She took in a breath of fresh air and giggled, "It's so good to be back!"

Although there was another stop to make, she drove home anyway and stopped inside, her heals clopping on the wood floors. Gastrodon was playing video games in the living room. "Hi, Cynthia! How was your trip to the store?"

"Uh… uneventful," answered the woman. "I actually decided not to pick up anything. Where's Garchomp?"

Gastrodon paused her video game. "Outside, training with Lucario."

Cynthia headed for the back door, but not before she stopped to give her pink slug a hug. "Have I ever told you how much I treasure you?"

Gastrodon giggled and blushed. "Aw, shucks, Cynthia~"

She opened the sliding glass door to her expansive backyard to see Garchomp executing a Dragon Rush on her Lucario. Both stopped their activities to come greet her, and she hugged both fervently. Garchomp grinned, saying, "We're so stoked about tomorrow's challenger, we're trying to perfect some new strategies."

"That's excellent. Keep up the good work; I'm going to head out one last time." Cynthia went inside to the kitchen and grabbed a lidded plastic container. "I forgot to give this back to Shirona, so I'm going to go do that," she let Gastrodon know.

"Do you want me to come with you?"

"Nah, that's alright. I'll be fine, and it'll only be for a little while." She felt the need to add, "Promise."

Soon the blond woman was all but flying up the stairs to the familiar apartment, knowing today was not a day when her friend would be at work in the shop or the gay bar. Knocking on the door, she could barely contain herself when she pounced on Shirona, planting a smooch right on her lips. Shirona blinked in surprise; when Cynthia finally pulled away, she laughed, "Did World War II end all over again, or are you just happy to see me~?"

Cynthia's face was red as a Groudon's hide. "Shirona… Sorry. It feels like we haven't seen each other in a really long time, is all."

"On the contrary, my dear, we have been seeing a lot of each other recently." Shirona gathered her up in a hug and pulled her into the apartment, whispering in her ear, "My little cookie." The other woman gasped and stared at her straight, her eyes becoming saucers when the plothole pimp winked at her.

"You… You remember?"

"Everything. Plotspace wasn't affected by the Crackverse at all, so when I hid in there, much to Giratina's twisted panties…"

"Does he remember? What about Jackle?"

"Not sure about Gira, but Jackle doesn't remember a thing. Maybe it's for the best, after all the shit he's been through." The two pulled out some chairs at the kitchen table and had a seat. "What about you, though? Will you be okay after all that's happened?"

Cynthia nodded. "Since I just went to the store and _didn't_ buy those suppositories, I think I can rest easy knowing that I saved the universe _and _the Night Dimension a lot of heartache."

Shirona rested her head on one hand, propped up on the table with her elbow. "But something I wonder, too, is about that Cyril. And the Crackverse as a whole."

"I'm sure the Crackverse will be fine as long as Nega doesn't try to take it over."

"You know what I just realized? Now that everything's back to normal, you can get that much-deserved nap we've been wanting since we sleep-deprived that whole adventure."

"But I'm not tired at all right now."

The plotspace queen insisted, "I still think we should have a sleepover here some night soon."

"Of course, I'd love to." Cynthia couldn't help but lean over the table and hug the other woman again. "Shirona, you're a very valuable friend."

Shirona squeezed her back. "And I love you too, Cynthia."


End file.
